CHAP-BOOK  ESSAYS 


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Annette  Rosenshine 


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Chap-Book  Essays 


ESSAYS 

rom  the 


Chap-Book 


Being  a  MISCELLANY ot 
Curious  and  interefting  Tale5, 
Hiftorie^,  &c;    newly  comr 
pofed  by  Many  Cele- 
brated 'Writer5 
and  very  delight- 
ful to  read. 


CHICAGO. 

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^1  n 


CONTENTS 

BOYESEN,   H.   H.  page 

Ibsen's  New  Play 5 

BURROUGHS,  JOHN 

Bits  of  Criticism 19 

DeKOVEN,  MRS.   REGINALD 

Verlaine:  a  Feminine  Appreciation    .       27 

EARLE,  ALICE    MORSE 

Degeneration 37 

The  Pleasures  of  Historiography  .     .  47 

The  Bureau  of  Literary  Revision.     .  59 

GATES,  LEWIS    E. 

Mr.   Meredith   and  his  Aminta  .     .     .       67 

GOSSE,  EDMUND 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry   ....       89 

GUINEY,   LOUISE   IMOGEN 

Concerning  Me  and  the  Metropolis  .     loi 
"Trilby'' 109 

HAPGOOD,   NORMAN 

MoDER^f  Laodicea 119 

The  Intellectual  Parvenu    ,     .     .     .     129 


i    453 


vi  CONTENTS 


HIGGINSON,  THOMAS    WENTWORTH     p^oE 
The  School  of  Jingoes 141 

JERROLD,  LAURENCE 

The  Uses  of  Perversity 149 

MABIE,  HAMILTON   WRIGHT 

A  Comment  on  Some  Recent  Books    .     157 
One  Word  More 167 

MOULTON,  LOUISE   CHANDLER 

The  Man  who  Dares 177 

SIMPSON,   EVE   BLANTYRE 

R.  L.   S.     Some  Edinburgh  Notes    .     .     195 

STODDARD,  RICHARD    HENRY 

Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets  .     .     .     209 

THOMPSON,  MAURICE 

Is  the  New  Woman  New?      223 

The  Return  of  the  Girl       ....  239 

The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well    .  253 


Ibsen's  New  Play 

By 

H.  H.  Boyesen 


IBSEN'S   NEW   PLAY. 

NEVER  has  the  great  master  written  anything 
simpler  and  more  human  than  **  Little  Eyolf.'* 
The  two  fundamental  chords  which  sound  with  vary- 
ing force  through  all  his  earlier  works  are  here  struck 
anew  with  increased  distinctness  and  resonance.  The 
ennobling  power  of  suffering,  the  educational  value 
of  pain^  —  that  is  the  first  lesson  which  the  play 
conveys  ;  and  the  second,  which  is  closely  akin  to  it, 
is  the  development  of  personality  through  the  disci- 
pline of  renunciation. 

Alfred  Allmers,  a  poor  and  obscure  man  of  letters, 
has  married  Rita,  a  rich  and  beautiful  heiress.  Dur- 
ing the  first  seven  or  eight  years  of  their  marriage 
they  live  frankly  the  life  of  the  senses  ;  and  in  amor- 
ous intoxication  forget  the  world  with  its  claims,  be- 
ing completely  absorbed  in  each  other.  Their  little 
son  Eyolf  they  leave  largely  to  his  aunt,  Asta  (All- 
mers's  supposed  sister),  and  only  interest  themselves 
in  him  spasmodically,  and  then  to  very  little  purpose. 

5 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 
Ibsen's  New  Play 


Rita  is,  in  fact,  not  very  fond  of  the  child,  and  feels 
vaguely  annoyed  w^henever  she  is  reminded  of  her 
duties  tow^ard  it.  It  is  directly  due  to  her  erotic  in- 
tensity that  the  boy,  w^ho  has  been  left  in  his  high- 
chair  at  table,  tumbles  down  and  is  crippled  for  life. 
He  then  becomes  a  reproach  to  his  mother,  and  she 
rather  shuns  than  seeks  the  sight  of  him. 

I  find  this  development  of  Rita  to  be  true  and  con- 
sistent. Women,  as  a  rule,  after  marriage,  develop 
the  wifely  character  at  the  expense  of  the  maternal, 
or  the  maternal  at  the  expense  of  the  wifely.  Rita 
Allmers  belongs  to  the  former  class.  She  is  young, 
beautiful,  and  passionate  ;  her  wifehood  is  all  to  her ; 
her  motherhood  only  incidental.  But  this  condition 
cannot  endure.  The  husband,  at  all  events,  feels  a 
subtle  change  steal  over  his  relation  to  his  wife  ;  and 
in  order  to  make  it  clear  to  himself,  he  goes  on  a 
long  pedestrian  tour  into  the  mountains.  On  his  re- 
turn, at  the  end  of  two  weeks,  he  is  received  by  Rita 
with  a  bacchanalian  seductiveness  which  ill  befits  his 
serious  mood.  He  has  resolved  to  introduce  a  radi- 
cal change  in  the  household.  He  will  henceforth 
devote  himself  to  the  education  of  his  son,  and  make 
that  his  chief  concern.     His  book  on  "Human  Re- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


By  H.   H.   Boyesen 


sponsibility,"  at  which  he  has  been  writing  in  a 
desultory  fashion,  shall  no  longer  divert  his  attention 
from  the  actual  responsibility,  which  it  were  a  sin  to 
shirk.  Rita,  however,  when  he  unfolds  his  plan  to 
her,  is  anything  but  pleased.  She  wants  him  all  to 
herself,  and  is  not  content  to  share  him  with  any- 
body, even  though  it  be  her  own  child.  She  can- 
not be  put  off  with  crumbs  of  affection.  She  coaxes, 
she  threatens  ;  she  hints  at  dire  consequences.  With 
the  passionate  vehemence  of  a  spoiled  and  petted 
beauty,  who  believes  her  love  disdained,  she  upbraids 
him,  and  cries  out  at  last  that  she  wishes  the  child 
had  never  been  born.  Presendy  a  wild  scream  is 
heard  from  the  pier,  and  little  Eyolf's  crutch  is  seen 
floating  upon  the  still  waters  of  the  fiord. 

The  second  act  opens  with  a  scene  in  which  Asta 
is  endeavoring  to  console  Allmers  in  his  affliction. 
He  is  trying  to  find  the  purpose,  the  meaning  of  his 
bereavement.  **  For  there  must  be  a  meaning  in 
it,'*  he  exclaims.  "Life,  existence,  — destiny  can- 
not be  so  utterly  meaningless."  Asta  had  loved  the 
dead  child,  and  he  feels  drawn  to  her  by  the  com- 
munion of  sorrow.  From  Rita,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  feels  repelled,  because  he  cannot,  in  spite  of  her 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


Ibsen's  New  Play 


wild  distraction,  believe  in  the  genuineness  of  her 
grief.  She  demands  black  crape,  flag  at  half  mast, 
and  all  the  outward  symbols  of  mourning ;  but  the 
sensation  which  now  is  torturing  her  is  not  pain  at 
the  loss  of  the  boy,  but  self-reproach.  The  keen 
tooth  of  remorse  is  piercing  the  very  marrow  of  her 
bones.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  forgets  how 
she  looks,  —  what  impression  she  is  making.  And 
that  is,  psychologically,  a  wholesome  change.  The 
centre  of  her  consciousness  is  wrenched  violently 
out  of  herself,  and  she  sees  existence  with  a  dif- 
ferent vision.  A  most  admirable  symbol  for  this 
unsleeping  remorse  which  is  stinging  and  scorching 
her  conscience  is  "the  great,  open  eyes'*  of  little 
Eyolf,  as  he  was  seen  lying  on  the  bottom  of  the 
fiord.  These  eyes  pursue  the  guilty  mother. 
**  They  will  haunt  me  all  my  life  long,**  she  de- 
clares. Keen,  simple,  and  soul-searching  is  the  con- 
versation between  husband  and  wife,  as  the  first 
quiverings  of  a  spiritual  life  are  awakened  in  both  of 
them  under  the  lash  of  an  accusing  conscience. 
Even  while  they  upbraid  each  other,  each  trying  to 
shift  his  share  of  responsibility  upon  the  other,  a 
vague  shame  takes  possession  of  them,  and  the  guilty 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


By  H.    H.   Boyesen 


heart  knows  and  avows  its  guilt.  They  conceive  of 
EyolPs  death  as  a  judgment  upon  them,  as  a  retribu- 
tion for  their  shirking  their  parental  duty.  For  the 
first  time  in  their  lives  they  stand  soul  to  soul  in  all 
their  naked  paltriness.  It  is  scarcely  strange  that 
they  should  shrink  from  each  other.  But  a  new  sin- 
cerity is  born  of  the  very  futility  of  embellishing  pre- 
tences. The  secret  thoughts  which  each  has  had  of 
the  other,  but  never  has  dared  to  utter,  pop  forth, 
like  toads  out  of  their  holes,  and  show  their  ugly 
faces.  His  book,  which  Allmers  had  professed  to 
regard  as  his  great  life-work,  was,  as  Rita  has  long 
since  guessed,  a  mere  makeshift  to  give  a  spurious  air 
of  importance  to  his  idleness,  and  he  has  abandoned 
it,  not  as  a  sacrifice  to  parental  duty,  but  because  he 
distrusted  his  ability  to  finish  it.  But  when  such 
things  have  been  said  —  when  each  has  stripped  the 
other  of  all  dissembling  draperies  —  how  is  life  to 
continue  ?  How  is  their  marriage  to  regain  its  former 
beauty  and  happiness  ?  Alas,  never  !  The  old  re- 
lation is  definitely  terminated  and  can  never  be  re- 
newed. It  is  because  she  feels  this  so  deeply  that 
Rita  declares  that  henceforth  she  must  have  much 
company  about  her  ;   for,  she  adds,  **  It  will  never 


lo  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


Ibsen's  New  PI 


ay 


do  for  Alfred  and  me  to  be  alone."  And  Allmers, 
under  the  same  profound  revulsion  of  feeling,  ex- 
presses his  desire  to  separate  from  his  wife.  She 
wishes  forgetfulness,  and  hopes  to  drown  her  remorse 
in  social  dissipations ;  while  to  him  forgetfulness 
seems  like  disloyalty  to  the  dead,  and  he  determines 
to  consecrate  the  future  to  his  grief,  with  a  dim  idea 
that  he  may  thus  atone  for  his  guilt.  Being  equally 
miserable  alone  or  together,  they  turn  in  their  despair 
to  Asta  and  implore  her  to  remain  with  them,  and 
take  the  place  of  little  Eyolf.  But  Asta,  having  dis- 
covered that  Alfred  is  not  her  brother,  is  afraid  to 
assume  the  dangerous  role  of  consoler,  and  departs 
with  the  engineer  Borgheim,  who  has  long  been  in 
love  with  her. 

In  that  dreary  lethargy  which  follows  violent  grief, 
Rita  and  Allmers  stand  without  the  energy  to  re- 
adjust their  lives  to  the  changed  conditions.  The 
world  is  disenchanted  for  them  ;  the  very  daylight 
beats  upon  their  eyes  with  a  brazen  fierceness,  and 
all  things  are  empty,  futile,  devoid  of  meaning.  But 
in  the  midst  of  this  oppressive  stillness  new  thoughts 
are  born ;  new  sentiments  begin  to  stir.  They  are 
bound  together,   if  by  nothing  else,  by  their  com- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  ii 

By  H.   H.   Boyesen 

munion  in  guilt.  Their  past  memories  and  their 
common  remorse  constitute  a  bond  which  is  scarcely- 
less  powerful  than  love.  Very  simply  and  patiently 
is  the  new  birth  of  the  spiritual  life  in  both  of  them 
indicated  in  the  following  dialogue  :  — 

Allmers  —  Yes,  but  you  —  you  yourself —  have 
bound  me  to  you  by  our  life  together. 

Rita  —  Oh,  in  your  eyes  I  am  not  —  I  am  not 
—  entrancingly  beautiful  any  more. 

Allmers  —  The  law  of  change  may  perhaps  keep 
us  together,  none  the  less. 

Rita  (^Nodding  slowly')  — There  is  a  change  in 
me  now  —  I  feel  the  anguish  of  it. 

Allmers  —  Anguish  ? 

Rita  —  Yes,  for  change,  too,  is  a  sort  of  birth. 

Allmers  —  It  is  —  or  a  resurrection.  Transition 
to  a  higher  life. 

Rita  (  Gazing  sadly  before  her)  —  Yes,  with  the 
loss  of  all  —  all  life's  happiness. 

Allmers  —  That  loss  is  just  the  gain. 

Rita  —  Oh,  phrases  !  Good  heavens  !  we  are 
creatures  of  earth,   after  all. 

Allmers  —  But  something  akin  to  the  sea  and  the 
heavens,  too,  Rita. 


t±  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Ibsen's  New  Play 

Rita  —  You,  perhaps  ;  not  I. 

Allmers  —  Oh,  yes  —  you,  too  ;  more  than  you 
suspect. 

The  force  of  the  common  memories  asserts  itself 
ane\y,  and  they  resolve  to  remain  together  and  help 
each  other  bear  the  burden  of  life.  Death  is  no 
longer  a  horror,  but  a  quiet  fellow-traveller,  neither 
welcomed  nor  dreaded.  Very  beautifully  and  natu- 
rally is  the  transition  to  the  new  altruistic  endeavor 
indicated  in  their  wonder  why  the  little  companions 
of  Eyolf,  who  all  could  swim,  made  no  effort  to  save 
him.  Never  had  Eyolf  s  father  and  mother  inter- 
ested themselves  in  these  boys ;  nor  had  they  made 
the  least  eifort  to  ameliorate  the  hard  lot  of  the  poor 
fishing  population,  settled  about  them.  Having 
never  sown  love,  they  had  never  reaped  it.  Now, 
in  order  to  fill  the  aching  void  of  her  heart  with 
"something  that  is  a  little  like  love,"  Rita  invites  all 
the  little  ragamufiins  from  the  village  up  into  her  lux- 
urious house,  clothes  them  in  Eyolf's  clothes,  gives 
them  EyolPs  toys  to  play  with,  and  feeds  them  and 
warms  them  and  lavishes  upon  them  the  homeless 
love  which  was  her  own  child's  due,  but  of  which 
he  was  defrauded.      In  the  opening  up  of  this  new 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  13 


By  H.   H.   Boyesen 


well-spring  of  love  in  her  heart,  she  suddenly  per- 
ceives the  meaning  of  Eyolf's  death. 

Rita  —  I  suppose  I  must  try  if  I  cannot  lighten  — 
and  ennoble  their  lot  in  life. 

Allmers  —  If  you  can  do  that  —  then  Eyolf  was 
not  born  in  vain. 

Rita  —  Nor  taken  away  from  us  in  vain,  either. 
.  .  .  (^Softly y  with  a  melancholy  smile)  I  want  to 
make  my  peace  with  the  great  open  eyes,  you  see. 

Allmers  {Struck ^  fixing  his  eyes  upon  her)  — 
Perhaps  I  could  join  you  in  that  ?  And  help  you, 
too,  Rita  ? 

And  so  they  begin  together  a  new  existence,  with 
new  aims  and  a  deeper  sense  of  human  responsibility. 
The  contrast  between  the  old  life  in  the  senses  and 
the  new  life  in  the  spirit,  is  emphasized  in  a  few 
striking  and  simple  phrases.  Their  aspiration  is  now 
consciously  **  upwards  —  towards  the  peaks,  —  to- 
wards the  great  silence." 

"Little  Eyolf,*'  though  its  theme  is  closely  akin 
to  those  of  Ibsen's  previous  plays,  is  yet  written  in  a 
new  key,  and  it  strikes  in  its  conclusion  a  note  which 
is  quite  alien  to  the  author's  earlier  work.  The 
declaration  of  human  responsibility  —  in  the  sense  of 


14  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Ibsen's  New  Play- 


accountability,  on  the  part  of  the  refined  and  prosper- 
ous, for  the  degradation  of  the  poor  or  miserable  — 
sounds  very  strange  upon  his  lips.  If  Carlyle  at  three 
score  and  ten  had  lifted  up  his  voice  and  sung  **  The 
Song  of  the  Shirt,"  or  "The  Cry  of  the  Children,'* 
we  could  not  have  been  more  surprised.  Ibsen's 
scorn  of  the  nameless  herd  —  of  its  meanness,  its 
baseness,  its  purblind  gropings  and  coarse  enjoyments 
—  rings  loudly  enough  through  *«  Peer  Gynt,"  *'  The 
League  of  Youth,"  and  **  An  Enemy  of  the  People." 
What  means  this  w^onderful  softening  of  his  heart 
tow^ard  Nature's  step-children,  if  not  that  his  own 
vision  has  been  enlarged,  a  new  warm  spring  has 
been  opened  up  in  his  old  age,  watering  the  roots  of 
his  being.  It  is  obvious  that  in  returning  to  his  na- 
tive land  and  becoming  a  world-renowned  man,  he 
has  celebrated  his  reconciliation  with  humanity. 
The  world  is  no  longer  so  dark  to  him,  nor  destiny 
so  cruel  and  meaningless  as  in  the  days  of  his  obscu- 
rity. Very  noble  sound  these  mellow  notes  in  the 
final  scenes  of  **Litde  Eyolf,"  even  though  we  miss 
occasionally  the  cadence  of  the  harsh  voice  that  spoke 
so  many  wholesome  truths  in  "Brand"  and  "  Rus- 
mersholm."      Interesting,  too,  it  is  to  observe  that 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  15 

By  H.    H.    Boyesen 

the  moral  lesson  of  **  Little  Eyolf"  is  the  very  same 
as  that  of  a  score  of  Robert  Browning's  poems  and 
dramas.  Though  Browning  never  emphasizes  altru- 
ism to  the  extent  that  Ibsen  does  in  the  present  play, 
the  arousing  of  man,  through  suffering,  from  the  life 
of  the  senses  to  that  of  the  spirit  is  succinctly  stated, 
the  very  soul  of  the  Gospel  according  to  Browning. 


Bits  of  Criticism 

By 

John  Burroughs 


BITS   OF   CRITICISM 

T^HE  difference  between  a  precious  stone  and  a 
■^  common  stone  is  not  an  essential  difference  — 
not  a  difference  of  substance,  but  of  arrangement  of 
the  particles  —  the  crystallization.  In  substance  the 
charcoal  and  the  diamond  are  one,  but  in  form  and 
effect  how  widely  they  differ.  The  pearl  contains 
nothing  that  is  not  found  in  the  coarsest  oyster- 
shell. 

Two  men  have  the  same  thoughts ;  they  use  about 
the  same  words  in  expressing  them  ;  yet  with  one 
the  product  is  real  literature,  with  the  other  it  is  a 
platitude. 

The  difference  is  all  in  the  presentation ;  a  finer 
and  more  compendious  process  has  gone  on  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other.  The  elements  are  better 
fused  and  knitted  together ;  they  are  in  some  way 
heightened  and  intensified.  Is  not  here  a  clew  to 
what  we  mean  by  style  ?  Style  transforms  common 
quartz  into  an  Egyptian  pebble.  We  are  apt  to 
Lthink  of  style  as  something  external,  that  can  be  put 

^9 


20  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Bits  of  Criticism 

on,  something  in  and  of  itself.  But  it  is  not ;  it  is  in 
the  inmost  texture  of  the  substance  itself.  Polish, 
choice  words,  faultless  rhetoric,  are  only  the  accidents 
of  style.  Indeed,  perfect  workmanship  is  one  thing  ; 
style,  as  the  great  writers  have  it,  is  quite  another. 
It  may,  and  often  does,  go  with  faulty  workmanship. 
It  is  the  use  of  words  in  a  fresh  and  vital  way,  so  as 
to  give  us  a  vivid  sense  of  a  new  spiritual  force  and 
personality.  In  the  best  work  the  style  is  found  and 
hidden  in  the  matter. 

I  heard  a  reader  observe,  after  finishing  one  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  books,  "How  well  it  is 
written!  "  I  thought  it  a  doubtful  compliment.  It 
should  have  been  so  well  written  that  the  reader 
would  not  have  been  conscious  of  the  writing  at  all. 
If  we  could  only  get  the  writing,  the  craft,  out  of 
our  stories  and  essays  and  poems,  and  make  the  reader 
feel  he  was  face  to  face  with  the  real  thing  !  The 
complete  identification  of  the  style  with  the  thought ; 
the  complete  absorption  of  the  man  with  his  matter, 
so  that  the  reader  shall  say,  "  How  good,  how  real, 
how  true  !  "  that  is  the  great  success.  Seek  ye  the 
kingdom  of  truth  first,  and  all  things  shall  be  added. 
I  think  wc  do  feel^,  with  regard  to  some  of  Steven- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  »i 

By  John  Burroughs 

son's  books,  like  "An  Inland  Voyage,'*  "Travels 
with  a  Donkey,"  etc.,  how  well  they  are  written. 
Certainly  one  would  not  have  the  literary  skill  any 
less,  but  would  have  one's  attention  kept  from  it  by 
the  richness  of  the  matter.  Hence  I  think  a  British 
critic  hits  the  mark  when  he  says  Stevenson  lacks 
homeliness. 

Dr.  Holmes  wrote  fine  and  eloquent  poems,  yet  I 
think  one  does  not  feel  that  he  is  essentially  a  poet. 
His  work  has  not  the  inevitableness  of  nature  ;  it  is 
a  skilful  literary  feat  ;  we  admire  it,  but  seldom 
return  to  it.  His  poetry  is  a  stream  in  an  artificial 
channel ;  his  natural  channel  is  his  prose  ;  here  we 
get  his  freest  and  most  spontaneous  activity. 

One  fault  that  I  find  with  our  younger  and  more 
promising  school  of  novelists  is  that  their  aim  is  too 
literary  ;  we  feel  that  they  are  striving  mainly  for 
artistic  effects.  Do  we  feel  this  at  all  in  Scott, 
Dickens,  Hawthorne,  or  Tolstoi  ?  These  men  are 
not  thinking  about  art  but  about  life  ;  how  to  re- 
produce life.  In  essayists  like  Pater,  Wilde,  Lang, 
the  same  thing  occurs  ;  we  are  constantly  aware  of 
the  literary  artist ;  they  are  not  in  love  with  life, 
reality,  so  much  as  they  are  with  words,  style,  lit- 


22  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Bits  of  Criticism 

erary  effects.  Their  seriousness  is  mainly  an  artistic 
seriousness.  It  is  not  so  much  that  they  have  some- 
thing to  say,  as  that  they  are  filled  with  a  desire  to 
say  something.  Nearly  all  our  magazine  poets  seem 
filled  with  the  same  desire  ;  what  labor,  what  art 
and  technique  ;  but  what  a  dearth  of  feeling  and 
spontaneity!  I  read  a  few  lines  or  stanzas  and  then 
stop.  I  see  it  is  only  deft  handicraft,  and  that  the 
heart  and  soul  are  not  in  it.  One  day  my  boy  killed 
what  an  old  hunter  told  him  was  a  mock  duck.  It 
looked  like  a  duck,  it  acted  like  a  duck,  it  quacked 
like  a  duck,  but  when  it  came  upon  the  table  —  it 
mocked  us.  These  mock  poems  of  the  magazines 
remind  me  of  it. 

Is  it  not  unfair  to  take  any  book,  certainly  any 
great  piece  of  literature,  and  deliberately  sit  down  to 
pass  judgment  upon  it  ?  Great  books  are  not  ad- 
dressed to  the  critical  judgment,  but  to  the  life,  the 
soul.  They  need  to  slide  into  one's  life  earnestly, 
and  find  him  with  his  guard  down,  his  doors  open, 
his  attitude  disinterested.  The  reader  is  to  give  him- 
self to  them,  as  they  give  themselves  to  him  ;  there 
must  be  self-sacrifice.  We  find  the  great  books 
when  we  are  young,  eager,  receptive.  After  we 
grow  hard  and  critical  we  find  few  great  books.      A 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  23 

By  John  Burroughs 

recent  French  critic  says  :   *'  It  seems  to  me  works 

IBk)f  art  are  not  made  to  be  judged,  but  to  be  loved,  to 

please,  to  dissipate  the  cares  of  real  life.     It  is  pre- 

IBcisely  by  wishing  to  judge  them  that  one  loses  sight 

|_  of  their  true  significance.'* 

IB     **  How  can  a  man  learn   to   know  himself?**  in- 

IBquires    Goethe.      **  Never    by    reflection,    only    by 

action.*'     Is  not  this  a  half-truth  ?     One  can  only 

learn  his  powers  of  action  by  action,  and  his  powers 

of  thought  by  thinking.      He  can  only  learn  whether 

l^or  not  he  has  power  to  command,  to  lead,  to  be  an 

orator  or  legislator,  by  actual  trial.      Has  he  courage, 

self-control,  self-denial,  fortitude,  etc.  ?     In  life  alone 

l^ran  he  find  out.      Action  tests  his  moral  virtues,  re- 

[—.flection  his  intellectual.     If  he  would  define  himself 

||o  himself  he  must  think.     "  We  are  weak  in  action," 

says  Renan,  '*  by  our  best  qualities  ;  we  are  strong  in 

[Mflction  by  will  and  a  certain  one-sidedness.**     **The 

moment    Byron   reflects,'*    says   Goethe,    "he   is   a 

child.**      Byron  had  no  self-knowledge.      We  have 

11  known  people  who  were  ready  and  sure  in  action 

who  did   not  know  themselves  at  all.      Your  weak- 

Biess  or   strength  as   a   person   comes  out   in  action  ; 

■your  weakness  or   strength  as   an   intellectual   force 

comes  out  in  reflection. 


Verlaine :  A  Feminine 

Appreciation 
By 
Mrs.  Reginald  de  Koven 


VERLAINE  :  A  FEMININE  APPRECIATION 

Ik 

IN  early  days,  when  the  triumphs  and  the  torments 
of  his  overwhelming  vitality  swept  at  will  across 
his  soul,  Paul  Verlaine  was  sometimes  god  and  some- 
times   satyr.      From   aspiring    altitudes    of    spiritual 
emotions  he    swung  like  a  pendulum   to   unspoken 
depths  of  vice. 
Ifc     The  world  spirit  doubly  charged  his  strange  and 
■terrible  personality,  pouring  into  it  the  essences  and 
IBintuitions  of  the  body  and  the  soul.      Into  the  alem- 
bic were  dissolved  the  entities  of  Baudelaire  and  Vil- 
lon, floating  still  upon  the  earth. 
!■     Then  the  whole  was  set  to  the  vibration  of  a  new 
rhythm  as  strange  and  as  remote  from  the  conscious- 

■  ness  of  men  as  the  songs  of  inter-lunar  space,  so  that 

■  his  utterances  with  the  naturalness  of  a  bird's  song  or 
an  infant's  lisp  should  have  the  accents  of  melody 

km  undreamed  of.  And  this  is  not  all  —  strangest  and 
most  tragically  terrible  in  its  possibilities  of  pain  — 
the   chrism   of  conscience  burns   his   sinister   brow. 

27 


I 


28  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Verlaine:  A  Feminine  Appreciation 

The  phantom  of  the  immortal  soul  drives  him  into 
the  outer  darkness. 

What  are  the  undiscovered  law^s  of  spiritual  hered- 
ity and  of  a  poetic  paternity,  such  as  are  suggested  in 
the  likeness  of  Baudelaire  and  Verlaine  to  their  pro- 
totype Villon  ?  The  secret  is  yet  to  find.  It  is  all  as 
strange  as  the  mystery  of  Bernhardt's  strayed  exis- 
tence in  this  modern  day.  An  emanation  from  some 
Egyptian  tomb,  wild  spirit  of  geuius  and  of  vice  is 
she,  vampire-like,  inhuman,  w^andering  among  a 
people  w^ho  have  thrilled  to  her  voice  and  wondered, 
not  knowing  whence  she  came. 

Behind  them  both  —  Baudelaire  with  his  lumin- 
ous, despairing  eyes,  and  Verlaine  with  his  terrible 
glabrous  head  —  the  madcap  figure  of  Villon  shines 
out  of  a  cloud  of  time,  and  we  hear  the  sound  of  his 
reckless  laughter  and  the  music  of  his  tears. 

But  if  the  relation  between  these  two  moderns 
and  this  singing  renegade  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  that 
of  mysterious  paternity,  between  Baudelaire  and  Ver- 
laine there  is  a  brotherhood  which  is  as  wonderful  as 
an  oriental  dream  of  metempsychosis. 

Baudelaire's  verses,  read  in  early  youth,  so  satu- 
rated and  possessed  the  new-born  soul  of  Paul  Ver- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  29 

By  Mrs.  Reginald  de  Koven 


laine    that     he     became    more    a    reincarnation     of 
Baudelaire  than  a  separate  existence.     The  passions 

tnd  the  madness  of  Baudelaire  became  his  own  —  he 
card  the  same  strange  music  —  saw  the  same  visions. 
Incarnate  of  the  mad  poet,  Verlaine,  his  second  soul, 
^£ed  a  second   slave    in    the   footsteps   of  the  same 
Strange  goddess  —  beauty  in  decay. 

And  where  one  had  madly  followed,  so  the  other 
fled,  enamoured  of  her  fatal  loveliness,  wherever  her 
fickle  steps  should  lead.  Sometimes  she  would 
escape  them,  disappearing  in  mists  and  mysterious 
darkness,  and  sometimes  they  would  come  upon  her 
suddenly  in  glimpses  of  green  light,  dancing  strange 
frivolous  steps,  and  the  color  of  her  robes  v^^ould  be 
mingled  rose  and  mystic  blue,  and  the  halo  of  her 
head   the  phosphor  of  decay. 

And  she  has  led  them  through  strange  paths  into 
the  dwelling-place  of  death,  and  where  love  and  life 
live  together,  for  these  two  are  never  separated,  and, 
through  many  places  of  terror  and  delight,  to  that 
ultimate  spot,  occult,  remote,  where  dwells  the  soul 
of  woman. 

There  the  youngest  of  her  slaves  found  himself 
one  day  outstripping  his  brother,  and  saw  with  living 


30  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Verlaine:  A  Feminine  Appreciation 

eyes  the  mystery,  —  and  thenceforward  he  was  no 
more  Paul  Verlaine  ;  he  was  the  prophet  and  inter- 
preter of  woman. 

To  him  alone  has  the  secret  been  revealed  ;  to  him 
alone,  the  mantle  of  deceit  she  wears,  the  slavish 
dress  of  the  centuries,  is  no  concealment.  He  has 
seen,  has  known,  and  he  understands.  **  The  very 
worst  thing  in  the  world,*'  says  an  unknown  writer, 
"is  the  soul  of  a  woman."  Forced  to  inaction, 
and  fed  on  lies,  her  principal  power,  founded  on 
man's  weakness,  curiosity,  and  the  imagination  of  the 
intellect,  lead  her  in  many  wandering  ways.  Tast- 
ing but  few  of  the  actual  joys,  the  triumphs,  and  the 
trials  of  life,  from  the  harem  of  her  slavery  her 
fancy  has  wandered  with  the  winds.  In  her  mind 
the  unique  and  fatal  experimenter,  she  has  known  all 
crimes,  all  horrors,  as  well  as  martyrdoms  and  joys. 
And  this,  while  her  gentle  feminine  hands  have  min- 
istered to  suffering,  her  voice  has  cheered,  her  smile 
has  illumined,  and  her  divine  patience  has  endured. 

Consider  these  lines  —  their  spiritual  intuition  is 
the  parallel  of  Wordsworth  in  his  limpid  moods ; 
their  knowledge,  like  a  single  glow  of  summer  light- 
ning, illumines  all  the  darkened  land  as  the  glimmer- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  31 

By  Mrs.  Reginald  de  Koven 

ing  patient  light  of  Bourget's    candle  in    cycles    of 
encyclopedics   will  never  do. 
Behold  the  woman  ! 

<*  Beaute  des  femmesy  leur  faiblesse  et  ces  mains  p&lesy 
Siuifont  sowuent  le  bien  et  pewvent  tout  le  mal. 

The  appealing  weakness  of  women  is  the  first  note, 
invariably  stronger  than  command  —  and  then  the 
reference  to  their  hands.  This  is  very  characteris- 
tic of  Verlaine  —  they  haunt  him. 

**  Les  cheres  mains  quifurent  miennes, 
Toutes  petitesj  toutes  belles.^'' 

•  •  •  •  • 

**  Mains  en  songes  —  main  sur  mon  hmeJ*^ 

The  last  is  a  very  poignant  line  —  and  again  in 
f*  Ariettes  Oubli^es,"  — 

**  Le  piano  que  baise  une  mainfrele.'"'' 

Then    comes    the    reflection    as    to    the    eyes    of 
women,   profoundly   true  and   observant,   contained 
^In  the  last  two  verses  of  the  first  stanza  :  — 

«*  Et  ces yeux  ou  plus  rien  ne  reste  ctanimal 
Slue  juste  assez  pour  dire  *  asse^ '  auxfureurs  m&les  I ' ' 


32  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Verlaine:  A  Feminine  Appreciation 

Then  the  next  stanza  :  — 

**  Et  toujour s,  maternelle  endormeuse  des  rales y 
Meme  quand  elle  ment  — ." 

Here  is  the  creature  who  could  be  both  nurse  and 
courtesan  —  concise  and  convincing  classification. 

Then  he  continues  relating  how,  as  man  as  well 
as  poet,  he  has  vibrated  to  the  clear  soprano  of 

"  Cette  woix  I  Matinal 
Appely  ou  chant  bien  doux  a  'vepres,  oufrais  signal, 
Ou  beau  sanglot  qui  'va  mourir  au  plides  chales  !  .   .   ." 

How  he  has  dreamed  over  the  tender  sentiment  of 
her  twilight  song,  and  been  melted  and  conquered 
by  the  still  greater,  more  beautiful  appeal  of  the 
emotional  soul  for  love  and  understanding,  —  "  ieau 
sanglot  * '  indeed  ! 

Then  comes  the  wonderful  third  stanza,  and  its 
denunciation  of  man's  brutality  and  selfishness. 

**  Homme s  durs  !  Vie  atroce  et  laide  d'ici-bas ! 
Ah  !  que  du  moinSy  loins  des  baisers  et  des  cojnbatSy 
Sluelque  chose  demeure  un  peu  sur  la  montagne.^'' 

Here  is  the  appeal  for  sentiment,  for  the  love  of 
the  spirit,  choked  in  the  throats  of  dumb  and  suffer- 
ing women. 


I 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  33 

By  Mrs.  Reginald  de  Koven 

**  Quelque  chose  du  cceufy''  he  repeats  and  per- 
suades, *'  enfantin  et  subtil.^* 

"  Bonte'y  respect !  car  qu" est-ce  qui  nous  accompagne, 
Et  •vraiment,  quand  la  mort  n^iendray  que  reste-t-il  F '  * 

From  him,  the  convict  poet,  from  this  heart  rot- 
ten with  all  the  sins  of  fancy  and  of  deed,  bursts  this 
plea  —  as  naive  as  it  is  earnest,  for  the  spiritual  in 
love  —  for  sentiment,  the  essence  of  the  soul. 
Strange  anomaly  —  stranger  still  that  it  should  be  he 
jvho  has  understood. 

Three  lines  more,  from  an  early  poem  called 
'  VceUy"*  of  such  condensed  significance  and  biting 
truth   as   lacks   a  parallel. 


*  O  lafemme  a  f  amour  calin  et  rechauffanty 
Douce,  pensi've  et  brutte,  et  jamais  e'tonneey 
Et  qui  parfois  njous  baise  au  fronts  comfne  un  enfant. ' ' 


H     What  a  portrait,  typical  and  individual  —  ** jamais 

etonne'e,^^  my  sisters,  what  an  accusation! 

I. 
Verlaine  is  dead.      The  last  shred  of  that  ruined 
oul  which  has  for  years  been  rotting  away  in  chance 
Parisian  brasseries,  has  loosened  its  hold  upon  life  and 
lipped   into   the   unknown ;  but  the  poetry  he  has 

3 


34  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Verlaine:  A  Feminine  Appreciation 

left  behind  him,  with  its  sighs  and  bitter  sobbings, 
and  its  few  gleams  of  beauty  and  of  joy,  contains  the 
essence  of  his  strange  nature. 

Although  repudiating  the  responsibility  of  the 
position,  he  was  the  founder  and  leader  of  that 
school  of  poetic  expression  which  has  most  impor- 
tantly distinguished  the  end  of  his  century. 

Half  faun,  half  satyr,  his  nature  was  allied  to 
baseness  and  brutal  animalism,  but  possessed  a  strange 
and  childish  na'iVete  which  remained  with  him  to 
the  last,  and  a  spirit  remotely  intact  in  the  chaos  of 
his  wayward  senses,  whence  issued  songs  of  match- 
less purity  and  inimitable  music. 


Degeneration 

By 

Alice  Morse  Earle 


DEGENERATION 

I  WRITE  this  paper  as  a  solemn,  an  earnest  warn- 
ing, an  appeal  to  the  unsuspecting  and  serene 
general  public  not  to  read  Dr.  Max  Nordau*s  book 
**  Degeneration."  I  give  this  word  of  admonition 
with  much  the  same  spirit  of  despairing  yet  powerless 
misery  as  might  animate  the  warning  of  any  slave  to 

ka  despised  habit,  a  hashish-eater,  an  opium  smoker, 
an  alcoholic   inebriate.      I  have  read   this    book   of 
Dr.  Nordau's,  and  through  it  I  am  become  the  un- 
willing victim  of  a  most  deplorable,    most    odious, 
most  blighting  habit,  — that  of  searching  for  degen- 
^  erates.     I    do    not  want   or    like    to    do    this,    but 
H  I    do    it    instinctively,    mechanically.       The     habit 
H  has   poisoned   all    the    social    relations    of  my    life, 
has  entered  into  my  views  of  the  general  public  ;   it 
has  sapped   my  delight   in  novelty,  choked  my  ad- 
!■  miration  of  genius,  deadened  my  enthusiasm,  silenced 
my   opinions;    and   it   has  brought    these   wretched 
|Hf  conditions  not  only  into  my  regard  of  matters  and 
persons    of  the  present  times,  but  retrospectively  it 


38  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Degeneration 

has  tainted  the  glories  of  history.  All  this  is  ex- 
ceeded by  the  introspective  blight  of  the  book  through 
exacting  a  miserable  and  mortifying  self-examination, 
which  leads  to  the  despairing,  the  unyielding  con- 
clusion that  I  am  myself  a  degenerate. 

The  book  is,  unfortunately,  so  explicit  in  explana- 
tion as  to  lure  every  reader  to  amateur  investigation. 
Indeed,  such  a  vast  array  of  mental  and  physical 
traits  are  enumerated  as  stigmata  —  the  marks  of  the 
beast  —  as  to  paralyze  the  thoughtless,  and  to  make 
the  judicious  grieve.  Our  mental  traits  w^e  can 
ofttimes  conceal  from  public  view,  our  moral  traits 
we  always  conceal,  but  many  of  our  physical  char- 
cateristics  cannot,  alas,  be  wholly  hidden.  Dr. 
Nordau  enumerates  many  physical  stigmata,  all  inter- 
esting, but  perhaps  the  most  prominent,  most  visible 
one,  is  the  degenerate  malformation  of  the  ear. 

I  was  present  recently,  at  an  interesting  function 
whereat  the  subject  of  the  evening  was  discussion  of 
this  book  **  Degeneration. ' '  In  the  course  of  a  brilliant 
and  convincing  address  one  of  the  lecturers  chanced 
to  name  that  most  hateful  and  evident  stigma,  the 
ear-mark,  so  to  speak,  of  the  accursed.  Though 
simple  were  his  words,  as  subtle  as  sewer-gas  was  his 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  39 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

poison;  as  all-pervading  and  penetrating  as  the  sand- 
storm in  the  desert,  it  entered  every  brain  in  the 
room.  I  speedily  and  furtively  glanced  from  side  to 
side  at  my  neighbors'  ears,  only  to  find  them  regard- 
ing mine  with  expressions  varying  from  inquisitive- 
ness  through  surprise  and  apprehension,  to  something 
closely  approaching  disgust.  After  the  discussion 
was  ended,  friends  advanced  to  speak  with  me ;  they 
shook  hands,  not  looking  with  pleasant  greeting  into 
my  eyes,  but  openly  staring  at  my  ears. 

Now,  that  would  be  necessarily  most  abhorrent  to 
every  one,  —  to  quote  Spenser :  — 

**  For  fear  lest  we  like  rogues  should  be  reputed 
And  for  eare-marked  beastes  abroad  be  bruited.'* 

And  it  is  specially  offensive  to  me  —  it  would  be 
anyway,  for  my  ears  are  not  handsome  ;  but  worse 
still  must  be  admitted,  they  are  not  normal.  They 
answer  every  purpose  of  hearing  and  of  restraining 
my  hat  from  slipping  down  over  my  eyes  and  on  my 
neck,  which  is  all  I  have  demanded  of  them  hitherto. 
But  now  I  know  that  as  emblems  of  my  mental  and 
moral  characteristics  they  are  wholly  remiss,  even 
degraded.      They  are  .079    larger  than   normality  ; 


40  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Degeneration 

they  stand  out  from  my  head  at  an  angle  which 
exhibits  2°  too  much  obtusity  ;  the  lobule  displays 
.17  too  little  pendulosity  ;  and,  worst  of  all,  the 
fossa  scaphoida  of  my  pinna  is  basely  unconvoluted. 
I  am  sore  ashamed  of  all  this.  I  think  of  having  the 
twin  base  betrayers  of  my  degenerate  nature  shaved 
oiFin  spots,  and  already  I  tie  them  close  to  my  head 
at  night  in  a  feeble  attempt  at  improvement.  But  I 
am  not  in  my  callow  youth ;  I  fear  they  have  not 
been  bent  in  the  way  they  should  be  inclined,  that 
their  degeneracy  is  irremediable. 

It  is  not  through  physical  stigmata  alone  that  I  find 
myself  branded.  I  find  that  I  am  impulsive,  I  have 
a  predilection  for  inane  reverie,  and  for  search  for 
the  bases  of  phenomena  —  all  sad  traits.  Worst  of 
all,  I  have  **  the  irresistible  desire  of  the  degenerate 
to  accumulate  useless  trifles."  Nordau  says,  **  It  is 
a  stigmata  of  degeneration,  and  has  had  invented  for 
it  the  name  oniomania  or  buying  craze.  The  onio- 
maniac  is  simply  unable  to  pass  by  any  lumber  with- 
out feeling  an  impulse  to  acquire."  When  I  read 
that  sentence  I  glanced  guildly  at  my  cabinets  of  old 
china  —  well,  I  could  use  it  on  the  table  and  thus 
make  it  unstigmatic  ;   at  my  Dutch  silver —  I  might 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  41 

By  Alice   Morse  Earle 

melt  it  up  and  sell  it ;  my  books,  my  autographs,  my 
photographs,  all  may  find  some  excuse  ;  but  how  can 
I  palliate  my  book-plates,  or  ever  live  down  having 
gone  for  a  year  through  every  village,  city,  and  town 
where  I  chanced  or  sought  to  wander,  asking  at 
every  jeweller's,  silversmith's,  and  watch-repairer's, 
**  Have  you  any  bridges  of  old  verge  watches  ? " 
I  fear  those  watch-bridges  stamp  me  an  oniomaniac. 
And  am  I  wholly  free  from  Lombroso's  graphomania  ? 
Have  I  not  an  insane  desire  to  write  ?     I  conceal  my 

^)bsession,  but  it  ever  influences  me.     I  may  confess 

^^Iso  (since  I  confess  at  all)  that  I  have  rupophobia 
(fear  of  dirt),  iophobia  (fear  of  poison),  nosophobia 
(fear  of  sickness),  belenophobia  (fear  of  needles  — 

[■especially  on  the  floor),  and  one  or  two  other 
wretched  obsessions,  particularly  an  inordinate  love 

H|R)r  animals,  upon  which  I  had  hitherto  rather 
bridled    as    the    mark    of  a    tender    nature. 

But  let  me  dwell  no  more  on  my  own  peculiar 
igmata,  but  show  how  —  to  paraphrase  Prior: 

*<  All  earth  is  by  the  ears  together 
Since  first  that  horrid  book  come  hither." 

I  haunt  photograph  shops,  look  over  the  front) s- 


42  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Degeneration 

pieces  of  illustrated  magazines,  and  various  collec- 
tions of  likenesses,  until  I  am  wearied  to  the  core  of 
looking  at  the  ears  of  prominent  persons,  and  it 
brings  forth  a  sense  of  profound,  of  heartfelt  grati- 
tude that  Daguerre  was  not  born  till  this  century, 
almost  till  our  own  day,  and  that  thus  the  ears  of 
centuries  of  countless  geniuses  are  disguised  in  their 
counterfeit  presentments  by  the  meaningless  conven- 
tionalities of  the  artist's  brush,  which  represent  in 
peaceful  and  happy  monotony  and  perfection  that 
unfortunate,  that  abhorred  member.  I  plainly  see, 
too,  w^hat  the  result  of  all  this  will  be.  I  picture  to 
myself  the  poet  of  the  future,  hooded,  veiled,  to 
conceal  his  features  ;  robed  in  flowing  drapery  to 
cover  his  feet  ;  with  his  hands  in  a  muff;  living 
alone  to  hide  his  personal  habits  ;  studiously  avoiding 
the  subject  of  his  health  ;  painstaking  in  showing  no 
decided  preferences  ;  void  of  passion  lest  he  be 
deemed  erotic  ;  void  of  epigram  or  humor  lest  his 
wit  be  taken  as  earnest  ;  until  I  sigh  mournfully  for 
the  time  spoken  of  in  Genesis,  when  '*  there  was  no 
more  earing.'* 

I  will  not  sign  my  name  to  this  heartfelt  commu- 
nication, since  it  would  have  no  weight  as  the  cog- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  43 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

Inomen  of  either  a  genius  or  a  mattoid,  and  perhaps 

'the   cry    of  warning  will  be    more    heeded   from   a 

suffering  incognito.      Besides,  I  do  not  wish  to  be 

i shunned    by    my    fellow-creatures    as    one    who    is 
determined  to  know  their  innermost  worst,  with  as 
cruel  a  mental  insistence,  and  with  a  method  genetic 
|to  that  employed  by  the  Inquisition  in  penetrating 
[the  brain  of  its  victims  by  pouring  boiling  oil  in  the 
ears.      Nor  am  I   willing  to    have  such   an    odious 
iposition  in  society  that  none  of  my  friends  will  visit 
me,    or  come  in   my  presence  unless   fortified  with 
ear-muifs  against  my  insinuating  gaze. 


The  Pleasures  of 
Historiography 
By 
Alice  Morse  Earle 


THE   PLEASURES   OF  HISTORIOGRAPHY 

THE    PLEASURES    OF    THE    CHASE 

I  AM  an  historiographer ;  and  being  desirous  and 
assiduous  of  accuracy  in  my  statements,  I  am 
given  to  recourse  to  first  sources  of  authority,  to  the 
fountain  springs  of  great  events  ;  I  am  a  scientifically 
historical  Gradgrind  ;  I  build  up  my  histories  induc- 
tively from  facts  by  the  most  approved  scientific 
rocesses.  And  I  can  say  with  feeling  and  with 
mphasis,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  : 
**  Sure,  a  great  deal  of  conscience  goes  into  the  mak- 
ing of  a  history." 

f  A  few  days  ago  the  need  of  exact  knowledge  upon 
a  certain  point  in  the  criminal  history  of  the  colonies 
determined  me  to  seek  my  information  in  the  most 

tnerring   and    unimpeachable    historical    records  we 
ave,  those  of  the  Criminal  Court.      Those  I  sought 
were  of  a  large  city,  I  might  say  of  Chicago,  only 
Rhe  has  no  colonial  records  ;  so  I  frankly  reveal  that 
™I  wished  to  search  the  records  of  the  criminal  courts 
,of  New  Amsterdam. 

47 


48  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Pleasures  of  Historiography 

Now  I  had  read  a  score  of  times,  and  heard  a 
score  of  times  more  in  the  glibly-rounded  sentences 
of  elegant  historical  lectures,  patriotic  addresses,  com- 
memorative **  papers  "  of  patriotic-hereditary  soci- 
eties, that  to  the  municipal  honor  of  that  very  large 
frog  in  a  puddle,  viz.  :  New  York,  which  grew  out 
of  the  pollywog  New  Amsterdam,  all  records  of 
colonial  times  of  that  city  were  still  preserved,  were 
cherished  as  sacred  script  in  that  fitting  cabinet,  the 
venerable  Hall  of  Records  in  the  City  Hall  Park. 
Thus  introduced,  I  ventured  to  its  gates. 

It  is  an  ancient,  dingy  building,  whose  opening 
portals  thrust  you  upon  a  cage-like  partition  strongly 
suggestive  of  a  menagerie,  and  also  olfactorily  sugges- 
tive of  the  menageries'  accompaniment,  **an  ancient 
and  a  fish-like  ' '  —  nay,  more,  a  bird-  and  beast-like 
smell. 

A  doorway  on  either  side  of  the  cage  lead  to  vari- 
ous desks  and  rooms,  and  enclosures  and  closets,  all 
labelled  with  well-worn  signs ;  and  as  I  glanced  be- 
wildered from  placard  to  placard,  from  sign  to  sign, 
there  approached  that  blessed  and  gallant  metropol- 
itan engine  for  the  succor  of  feminine  ignorance,  in- 
capacity, and  weakness  —  a  policeman.      Gladly  did 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  49 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

I  follow  in  his  sturdy  vv^ake  to  the  office  of  the  Clerk 

of  Records,  who  would  know  all  about  it.     Alas!  he 

was   out.      A  callow,  inky   youth,  his  deputy,  had 

never  heard  of  any  Dutch  records,  and  did  n'  t  believe 

there  were  any  in  New  York.      My  policeman  had 

vanished.       The   youth   leaned   out   of  his    latticed 

window,  pointed    round  a   corner    to    an    enclosed 

office  :      **  Go  ask  bim,  he  can  tell  you.'*      I  went 

and   asked   him  ;  for  a   third   time   I    told  my  tale, 

already  rehearsed  to  policeman  and  youth.      **  I  wish 

to  see  the  colonial  records  of  the  criminal  courts  in 

New  York  in  the  seventeenth  century.      Part  are  in 

Dutch.      I  hear  they  have  been  translated,  and  that 

^he  English  translation  is  here,  for  the  use  of  the  pub- 

iBc.     If  this   is   not   so,   I  wish   to  see  the  original 

iDutch  and  English  records  from  the  year   1650  to 

1700." 

K   It  is  impossible  to  overstate  the  expression  of  blank 

surprise  and  incredulity  with  which  this  inquiry  was 

greeted.      The  official  vouchsafed  one  curt  answer  : 

B'  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  a  Dutch  trial  in 

Wie  criminal  courts  of  New  York,  and  I  don't  believe 

there  ever  was  one.      If  so,  be  will  know." 

"  He  "  was  a  haven,   for   his  office  was  labelled 

4 


50  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Pleasures  of  Historiography 

Satisfaction  —  and  he  was  satisfactory.  After  a 
fourth  explanation  of  my  desires,  he  answered  me 
with  the  elaborately  patient  and  compassionate  polite- 
ness usually  employed  by  men  in  business  and  public 
offices  to  a  woman' s  apparently  useless  inquiries.  He 
said  gently  :  *'  Only  deeds  and  transfers  are  here  in 
the  Hall  of  Records;  those  records  you  wish  to  see 
are  all  in  the  County  Clerk's  office,  over  there." 

Over  there  was  the  court-house  of  Tweed's  in- 
glorious fame.  Within  the  said  office  four  transfers, 
from  book-keeper  to  messenger,  to  civil  clerk,  to 
County  Clerk,  found  me,  after  four  more  dogged 
repetitions,  encaged  myself  in  a  dingy  wire  prison, 
surrounded  by  millions  of  compartments  with  papers 
and  deeds,  and  flanked  by  scores  of  spittoons.  Er- 
rand boys,  messengers,  aged  porters,  young  attorneys, 
came  and  went,  papers  were  given  and  received  with 
mechanical  rapidity  and  precision  by  the  monarch  of 
the  cage,  an  elderly  Irishman,  smooth-shaven,  mas- 
sive-featured, inscrutable,  blank  of  expression,  who 
finally  turned  to  me  with  civil  indifference.  But 
this  was  not  the  right  place  for  me  to  come  ;  those 
records  were  at  the  court-house  at  Ninth  Street, 
where   the   criminal   courts  were  held.      I  patiently 


I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  51 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

prepared  to  assail  the  Ninth  Street  abode  of  Themis, 
not  without  an  unworthy  suspicion  that  this  Hiber- 
nian Sphinx  sent  me  there  to  get  rid  of  me.      But  a 
gentleman-like  and  eavesdropping  bystander  proffered 
his   advice  :    **  Those  records   you  want   are  in  the 
office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  in 
the  third  story  of  this  building."     And  he  thrust  me 
with  speed  in   the  ascending  elevator.     The  room 
pointed   out   to   me   as   my   goal    proved   to   be   the 
Supreme  Court,  a  scene  of  peaceful  dignity,  but,  alas, 
there  was  no   such   officer  anywhere  as  the  Clerk  of 
the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.     Gloomily  turning  to 
the   Surrogate's  office  to   examine   the  will   of  this 
Dutch  criminal  whom  I  was  running  to  earth,  mine 
eyes  encountered  this  sign  :     Office  of  the  Court  of 
Common   Pleas.      Certainly  this  was   the  office  and 
the   records  were  here,  though   the   clerk   was   not. 
Other  clerks  there  were ;  to  the  most  urbane  for  the 
tenth  time  I  told  my  tale,  and  finally  was  shown  the 
records.     "These   are   in   Dutch,*'    I   said;   "will 
you  show  me  the  English  translation  ?  "     "  Are  they 
in  Dutch  ?  '*   he    answered   with    some   animation. 
"I  never  knew   that.       I   have  been   here   twenty 
years,  and  no  one  has  ever  asked  to  see  them  before." 


52  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Pleasures  of  Historiography 

Of  course  there  was  no  English  translation.  I 
can  read  and  translate  printed  Dutch  with  ease ;  but 
seventeenth  century  Dutch  differs  more  from  modern 
Dutch  than  does  old  French  from  the  French  of  to- 
day. Add  to  this  the  unique  variations  in  spelling 
of  the  Dutch  clerks,  the  curious  chirography,  the 
faded  ink,  and  no  antiquary  will  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  an  hour  had  passed  ere  I  had  read  enough  of 
those  records  to  learn  that  they  were  wholly  civil 
cases,  boundary  disputes,  adjustment  cases,  etc.  I 
wearily  rose  to  leave,  when  a  newly-arrived  person 
of  authority  said  airily  :  **  I  can  tell  you  all  about 
those  old  Criminal  Court  records.  They  are  all 
over  in  the  City  Hall,  in  the  office  of  the  Super- 
intendent of  City  Affairs.'*  I  trust  I  showed  be- 
coming credulity  and  gratitude. 

I  walked  out  into  the  beautiful  little  park,  aglow 
with  beds  of  radiant  scarlet  and  yellow  tulips,  that 
remembered  and  significantly  commemorated  their 
Holland  ancestors  and  the  old  Dutch-American  town, 
even  if  the  city's  servants  knew  them  not  ;  and  I 
strolled  under  the  trees  and  breathed  with  delight 
the  fresh  air  of  heaven  ;  for  wherever  men  congregate 
in  offices,  there  ventilation  is  as  naught. 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  53 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

I  sought  the  Superintendent's  office.  To  him, 
ignominiously  but  cheerfully  ensconced  in  the  cellar- 
like basement,  I  descended,  where  glimmered  a  light 
so  dim,  so  humid,  that  I  had  a  sense  of  being  in  sub- 
aqueous rather  than  subterranean  depths,  and  I  was 
struck  with  the  civic  humor  that  placed  the  Super- 
intendent subter  om?iia. 

He  really  knew  nothing  about  these  records,  but 
there  was  a  man  in  the  Library  who  would  know. 
Through  underground  tunnels  and  cemented  passages 
and  up  a  narrow  staircase,  I  reached  the  noble  above- 
ground  abode  of  our  municipal  corporation. 

Here  all  was  radiant  with  prosperity.  No  lean 
and  hungry  race  filled  those  corridors  and  chambers  ; 
jocund  and  ruddy  were  all,  as  were  our  city  fathers 
of  yore  who  drank  vast  tuns  of  sack-posset  and  ale. 
Well  may  we  say  when  on  those  men  and  on  these 
we  gaze  :  Nobly  wert  thou  named  Manhattan !  — 
the  place  where  all  drank  together ! 

Mighty  is  Manhattan  and  great  even  the  reflection 
of  her  power.  Neither  poverty-stricken  nor  meagre 
of  flesh  am  I,  but  I  shrank  into  humble  insignificance 
before  those  well-fed  aggrandizations  of  the  city's 
glory   and   prosperity   who   bourgeoned  through   the 


54  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Pleasures  of  Historiography 

corridors  of  our  modern  Stadt  Huys  ;  and  I  fain 
would  have  saluted  them  with  respectful  mien  and 
words  as  of  yore  as  "  Most  Worshipful,  Most  Pru- 
dent, and  Very  Discreet,  their  High  Mightinesses," 
—  not  Burgomasters  and  Schepens,  but  Aldermen 
and  Councilmen,  —  but  the  tame  conventionalities 
of  modern  life  kept  me  silent. 

In  the  Library  the  sought-for  man  sent  me  to  the 
Clerk  of  the  Common  Council,  who  in  turn  bade 
me  be  seated  while  he  lured  from  an  adjoining 
"closet,"  as  old  Pepys  called  his  office,  one  who 
would  be  glad  to  tell  me  all  about  everything  relating 
to  those  ancient  days. 

Here  was  something  tangible.  Glad  to  tell  me! 
In  truth  he  was.  Never  have  I  seen  such  a  passion 
for  talking.  Forth  poured  a  flood  of  elaborate  Mile- 
sian eloquence,  in  which  intricate  suggestions,  noble 
patriotic  sentiments,  ardent  historical  interest,  warm 
sympathy  in  my  researches,  and  unbounded  satisfac- 
tion and  glowing  pride  over  New  York's  honorable 
preservation  of  the  records  of  her  ancestors  all  joined. 
Nevertheless  and  notwithstanding,  when  I  ran  my 
fat  but  sly  and  agile  political  fox  to  earth,  and  made 
him   answer  me  directly,  I  simmered  down  merely 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  55 


By  Alice  Morse  Earle 


this  one  solid  fact  :  "If  ye  go  to  Mr.  De  Lancy's 
office  in  the  Vanderbilt  Building,  he  can  tell  ye 
where  thim  ricords  is,  an'  no  one  ilse  in  this  city 
can." 

I  tendered  as  floriated  and  declamatory  a  farewell 
expression  of  gratitude  as  my  dull  tongue  could  com- 
mand to  my  city  authority,  who  was,  I  am  led  to 
believe  from  the  tablet  on  the  office  from  which  he 
emerged,  a  common  councilman,  but  who  might 
have  been  a  score  of  glorious  aldermen  distilled  and 
expressed  and  condensed  into  one,  so  rotund,  so 
ruby-colored,  so  shining,  so  truly  grand  was  he,  so 
elegant,  albeit  loose,  of  attire,  so  glittering  with  gold 
and  precious  stones.  As  I  thanked  him  in  phrases 
sadly  etiolated  in  comparison  with  his  own  glowing 
pauses,  **  Madam,'*  said  he,  "  are  you  satisfied, 
and  may  I  ask  your  name  and  residence  ?  "  "  You 
may,"  said  I,  **  I  came  to  study  history,  and  I  was 
sent  to  the  Satisfaction  Clerk,  and  I  found  satisfaction, 
though  not  in  the  wonted  legal  form."  "  But  ye 
haven't  told  me  yer  name,"  said  he.  <*I  have 
not,"   said  I;   "good  day." 


The  Bureau  of  Literary 

Revision 
By 
Alice  Morse  Earle 


i 

I 


THE   BUREAU   OF   LITERARY   REVISION 

OUR  beloved  friend  Charles  Lamb  once  wrote  of 
his  Essays  of  Elia  :  — 

"  One  of  these  professors,  on  my  complaining  that 
these  little  sketches  of  mine  were  anything  but  method- 
ical, and  that  I  was  unable  to  make  them  otherwise, 
kindly  offered  to  instruct  me  on  the  method  by 
which  the  young  gentlemen  in  his  seminary  were 
taught  to  compose  English  themes.'* 

When,  with  the  solemn  thoughts  brought  to  each 
soul  at  the  "turn  of  the  year,"  we  recount  to  our- 
selves our  many  mercies,  let  us  never  fail  to  remember 
with  gratitude  that  the  magnanimous  offer  of  that 
seminary  professor  was  never  accepted. 

We  do  not  have  to  wait  to-day  for  chance  offers 
from  solemn  professors  of  instruction  and  revision  in 
literary  composition  ;  *'thc  method  by  which  young 
gentlemen  in  the  seminary  are  taught  to  compose" 
is  thrust  upon  us  at  every  hand.  "  Bureaus  of  re- 
vision" and  **  Offices  of  literary  criticism"  abound 
and  thrive  and  become  opulent  through  examining, 
correcting,  and  revising  the  work  of  confiding  authors. 

59 


Go  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


The  Bureau  of  Literary  Revision 


We  are  told  with  pride  that  in  one  bureau  alone 
three  thousand  manuscripts  a  year  were  thus  revised. 
Among  those  three  thousand  young  fledglings  of 
authors  there  may  not  have  been  a  Charles  Lamb, 
but  the  lamentable  thought  also  will  arise  that  there 
may  have  been  a  Charles  Lamb,  and  that  his  un- 
methodical little  "sketches  "  may  have  been  pruned 
or  amplified,  or  arranged  and  revised  till  they  proved 
true  **  English  themes.'* 

There  is  a  wearying  monotony  in  the  make-up  ot 
many  of  our  periodicals,  some  of  those  even  of  large 
circulation.  There  is  a  lack  of  literary  color,  a  pre- 
cise and  proper  formation  of  each  sentence,  and  a 
regularity  of  ensemble  which  is  certainly  grammatical 
but  is  fully  as  uninteresting  as  grammar.  A  surfeit 
of  these  exactly  formal  "English  themes"  has  made 
the  gasping  public  turn  to  some  of  our  literary  freaks 
and  comets  with  a  sensation  as  if  seeking  an  inspira- 
tion of  fresh  air  after  mental  smothering. 

I  attribute  this  too  frequent  monotony,  and  even 
stultification  of  composition,  to  the  "  literary  reviser" 
—  the  trail  of  the  serpent  is  over  all  our  press. 

And  what  does  this  literary  revision  offer  for 
the  large  fees  paid  ?     One  alleged  benefit  is  the  cor- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  6i 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 

rection  of  punctuation.  It  certainly  performs  this 
service  ;  but  the  editor  and  proofreader  in  any  re- 
sponsible publishing-house  will,  as  a  duty,  correct 
with  precision  the  punctuation  of  any  paper  or  book 
printed  by  the  house.  A  benefit  alleged  by  one 
circular  is  **a  pruning  of  too  riotous  imagination." 
T  groaned  aloud  as  I  read  this  threat.  Too  riotous 
imagination  to-day  !  when  we  long  for  imagination 
and  long  in  vain ;  when  a  wooden  realism  thrusts  its 
angular  outlines  in  our  faces  from  every  printed  page. 

I**  To  curb  the  use  of  adjectives"  is  another  of  the 
reviser* s  duties.  The  meagre  style  too  often  seen  of 
late  may  arise  from  this  curbing. 

The  most  astonishing  aspect  of  this  bureau  of  re- 

^  vision  is  shown  in  the  patience  with  which  authors 

endure  its  devastations.      They  confidingly  send  into 

this  machine  the  tenderly  nourished  children  of  their 

B  brains,  dressed  with  natural  affection  in  all  the  frills 

and  ruffles  of  rhetoric,  and  receive  them  home  again 

1^  with   ornaments   torn   away,   laid   in   a   strait-jacket 

which  has  been  cut  with  rigid  uniformity,  and  made 

\Wf  with  mathematical  precision  —  and  yet  they  kiss  the 

rod  that  turned  the  natural  children  of  their  brains 

into  wretched  little  automatons. 


62  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Bureau  of  Literary  Revision 

I  would  not  judge  all  revision  bureaus  by  one ; 
but  I  must  give  my  experience  at  the  hands  of  a  very 
reputable  one.  I  had  w^ritten  four  books  of  more 
than  average  sale,  and  had  been  ever  commended  by 
the  press  for  my  grammatical  construction,  when  I 
sent  to  a  bureau  for  criticism  a  short  magazine-paper. 
It  was  returned  to  me  full  of  very  large  and  legible 
corrections  —  or  rather  alterations  such  as  these : 
Where  I  wrote  of  my  heroine  being  dressed  in,  etc., 
my  reviser  placed  gowned  in ;  where  I  wrote  tbe 
little  child,  the  reviser  altered  to  the  young  babe ; 
where  I  said  nothing  happened  after  this,  to  my  hor- 
ror, in  heroic  blue-pencilled  letters,  I  read  my  pet 
aversion,  nothing  transpired.  Where  a  compound 
sentence  contained  several  clauses  with  verbs  in  the 
past  tense,  all  dependent  clauses  were  made  parti- 
cipial in  form ;  not  always  to  the  advantage  in  ele- 
gance, never  of  moment  or  indeed  of  real  difference 
in  grammatical  construction. 

1  must  confess  that  I  did  not  send  to  this  bureau 
my  real  name,  as  palpably  too  well  known  to  men 
of  literary  ilk.  My  three  dollars'  worth  of  advice 
was  contained  in  a  single  sentence  :  "  Your  style  is 
fair,  but  commonplace ;  if  you  practise  literary  com- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


63 


By  Alice  Morse  Earle 


position  you  may  succeed ;  but  this  article  is,  in  our 
judgment,  not  salable." 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  sending  the  paper  immedi- 
ately to  a  well-known  magazine  and  receiving  there- 
from in  payment  a  check  for  fifty  dollars. 


Mr.   Meredith  and 

his  Aminta 
By 
Lewis  E  Gates 


I 

I 


MR.   MEREDITH   AND   HIS   AMINTA 

TN  his  latest  book  the  choppiness  of  Mr.  Mere- 
■*^  dith's  style  and  the  restless  tacking  of  his 
method  are  as  great  as  ever,  and  those  worthy 
people  who  delight  in  the  smooth  seas  and  the  steady 
zephyrs  of  ordinary  English  fiction  will  find  their 
experience  of  **  Lord  Ormont  and  his  Aminta " 
very  much  of  a  stormy  channel-passage.  But  to 
people  with  sound  nerves  and  adventurous  spirits  the 
experience  is  sure  to  be  bracing  and  exhilarating. 
Perhaps  the  most  surprising  single  effect  that  you 
get  from  "Lord  Ormont"  is  that  of  the  tingling 
vitality  of  the  author.  You  can  hardly  realize 
while  reading  the  book  that  you  have  to  do  with  a 
writer  who  has  been  for  forty  years  a  tireless  worker 
in  literature,  and  who  published  his  first  venture  in 
fiction  two  years  before  George  Eliot's  first  story. 
The  style  in  "  Lord  Ormont  "  has  all  the  audacity 
of  a  first  rebellion  against  tradition  and  convention  ; 
the  sentences  rush  forward  in  all  possible  rhythms 
except  the  languorous  ones  of  the  dilettante  or  the 

67 


68  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.    Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

*'  faultily  jfaultless  "  ones  of  the  precisian  or  pedant ; 
the  imagination  is  restlessly  self-assertive  in  its  em- 
bodiment of  every  abstract  idea  in  an  image  for  eye 
or  for  ear ;  the  tone  is  almost  boisterous  in  its 
hilarity  or  brusqueness ;  and  finally  the  book  sounds 
everywhere  the  note  of  the  future,  and  prophesies 
change  and  new  social  conditions  without  a  touch  of 
misgiving  or  regret.  Perhaps  in  no  earlier  work  has 
Mr.  Meredith  been  so  aggressive  and,  at  the  same 
time,  so  confident  and  buoyant. 

As  for  Mr.  Meredith's  technique,  it  remains  in 
the  new  book  substantially  what  it  has  always  been, 
and  many  of  the  general  effects  he  produces  are 
familiar  to  his  admirers  and  delightful  in  their  recur- 
rence. Where  save  in  Mr.  Meredith's  fiction  can 
there  be  found  such  brilliance  of  surface  ?  such 
vividness  of  dramatic  portrayal  ?  Or  at  any  rate 
where  is  vividness  so  reconciled  with  suggestiveness 
of  interpretation  ?  concrete  beauty  with  abstract 
truth  ?  In  all  his  novels  he  sends  our  imaginations 
flashing  over  the  surface  of  some  portion  of  life  ;  he 
calls  up  before  us  this  portion  of  life  in  all  its  fine 
contrasts  of  color  and  form,  of  storm  and  sunshine, 
of  mid-day  and    moonlight ;    and  yet  at  the    same 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  69 

By  Lewis  E.   Gates 

time  he  constrains  us  to  pierce  below  the  surface  and 
to  understand  intuitively  why  the  drama  moves  this 
way  or  that,  what  forces  are  in  conflict,  what  pas- 
sions are  flushing  or  blanching  the  cheek,  what  fan- 
cies or  ideals  are  making  the  eyes  dream  on  a  distant 
goal. 

More  nearly  than  any  other  living  novelist,  Mr. 
Meredith  succeeds  in  overcoming  the  difiiculties 
forced  on  the  writer  of  fiction  by  the  double  appeal 
of  life.  Life  is  a  pageant  and  life  is  a  problem  ;  it 
smites  on  the  senses  and  allures  the  imagination, 
but  it  also  challenges  the  intellect ;  it  has  power  and 
beauty,  but  it  has  also  significance.  Now  most 
writers  of  fiction  who  reveal  to  us  the  inner  meaning 
of  life  allow  its  beauty  and  power  to  fade  into 
shadowy  vagueness  ;  and  those  who  give  us  the 
dramatic  value  of  life  too  often  lack  penetration  and 
philosophic  insight.  One  of  Mr.  Meredith's 
greatest  claims  to  distinction  hes  in  the  fact  that  he, 
better  than  any  other  English  novelist,  has  reconciled 
this  conflict  between  vividness  of  portrayal  and  depth 
of  interpretation.  He  has  grasped  English  life  in  all 
its  enormous  range  and  mass  and  complexity ;  he 
has  flashed  it  before  us  in  all  its  splendid  vividness 


70  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

for  eye  and  ear  and  imagination ;  and  at  the  same 
time  he  has  made  it  suggestive  to  thought,  has 
comprehended  it  through  and  through  in  its  subtlest 
relations,  and  in  portraying  it  has  breathed  into  it 
the  breath  of  a  philosophical  spirit. 

If  we  analyze  Mr.  Meredith's  pages  carefully,  we 
find  very  few  of  those  long  disquisitions  on  character 
with  which  the  pages  of  a  pyschological  novelist  are 
covered.  He  deals  almost  as  constantly  with  acts, 
with  dialogue,  with  what  meets  the  senses,  the  eye 
and  the  ear,  as  the  elder  Dumas.  It  is  a  mimic 
world  of  images  he  gives,  not  a  globe  of  the  earth 
with  scientific  terms  and  black  marks  on  yellow  paste- 
board. He  is  always  primarily  an  artist,  not  a  psy- 
chologist or  a  descriptive  sociologist.  Too  often 
when  we  finish  one  of  George  Eliot's  stories  we  feel 
that  she  has  explained  her  characters  so  exhaustively 
that  we  should  not  know  them  if  we  met  them 
on  the  street.  We  have  had  so  much  to  do  with 
their  ganglia  and  their  nervous  systems,  and  with 
the  ashes  of  their  ancestors,  that  we  have  little  notion 
of  the  characters  as  actual  living  people.  If  a  psy- 
chological novelist  were  to  write  out  a  professional 
analysis  of  one's  best  friend,  it  may  fairly  be  doubted 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  71 

By  Lewis  E.  Gates 

whether  one  would  recognize  the  description.  In 
fact,  in  real  life  it  is  only  criminals  whom  we  are 
expected  to  recognize  by  anthropometric  memoranda, 
—  by  the  length  of  the  index  finger,  the  breadth  of 
the  ear,  the  distance  between  the  eyes,  and  by  the 
lines  on  the  finger-tips. 

Now  Mr.  Meredith  avoids  all  anthropometric 
statistics  and  chemical  analysis,  and  gives  us  the  very 
counterfeit  presentment  of  men  and  women  as  in 
actual  life  they  go  visibly  and  audibly  past  us  ;  and 
yet  he  so  seizes  his  moments  for  portraiture  that  the 
soul,  the  inner  life,  the  character,  photographs  itself 
on  the  retina  of  a  sensitive  on-looker  like  a  com- 
posite picture.  He  makes  all  his  characters  and 
scenes,  and  all  the  life  he  portrays,  instinct  with 
truth ;  and  yet  this  truth  is  implicit ;  the  author 
very  rarely  indulges  in  pretentious  talk  on  these 
topics.  For  the  most  part,  he  is  apparently  busy 
putting  before  us  the  picturesque  aspects  of  life  and 
its  dramatic  moments. 

This  fondness  of  his  for  brilliance  of  surface,  for 
vividness  of  portrayal,  accounts  for  many  peculiari- 
ties of  Mr.  Meredith's  method,  —  among  them  for 
the  use  of  what  may  be  termed   Meredith  mosaic. 


72  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

"        '  ■       ■  '    ■  ■         ■  "■    ■  '  ■■      '  ..    ■    i    I  ..     ■  .1  I  ■■■■■■      I       —IBI^ 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

His  opening  chapters  are  nearly  always  curious  com- 
posites, made  up  of  dozens  of  little  speeches,  little 
acts,  little  scenes,  collected  from  a  series  of  years, 
and  fitted  together  into  a  more  or  less  homogeneous 
whole.  He  dislikes  formal  exposition  ;  he  instinc- 
tively shrinks  from  discoursing  through  wearisome 
pages  on  the  early  lives  of  the  actors  in  his  story, 
on  the  formative  influences,  for  example,  which  had 
moulded  the  characters  of  Aminta  and  Weyburn 
up  to  the  moment  when  the  continuous  action  of 
'*  Lord  Ormont'*  begins.  Yet  the  **  fuller  por- 
traiture'* requires  that  this  knowledge  be  in  some 
way  ensured  to  his  readers.  Hence  he  puts  before 
us  such  skilfully  chosen  bits  of  Aminta*  s  and  Wey- 
burn* s  early  lives,  that  while  our  imaginations  are 
always  kept  busy  with  words  and  tones  and  acts  and 
looks,  we  are  at  the  same  time  inveigled  into  a 
knowledge  of  minds  and  hearts  and  motives.  Chap- 
ters constructed  on  this  plan  are  curiously  without 
continuity  of  action,  and  often  seem  puzzling  in  their 
fragmentariness.  But  they  combine,  in  an  unusual 
degree,  vividness  of  portrayal  with  suggestiveness  of 
interpretation. 

Another  means  by  which  Mr.  Meredith  secures 


I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  73 

By  Lewis  E.  Gates 

his  brilliance  of  surface,  his  glowing  color,  is 
through  his  lavish  use  of  figures.  Mr.  Meredith  is 
a  poet  subdued  by  the  spirit  of  his  age  to  work  in 
its  most  popular  form,  the  novel ;  but  even  in  prose 
his  imagination  will  not  be  gainsaid,  and  everywhere 
we  find  in  his  style  the  sensuous  concreteness  and 
symbolism  of  poetry.  **  Absent  or  present,  she  was 
round  him  like  the  hills  of  a  valley.  She  was 
round  his  thoughts  —  caged  them;  however  high, 
however  far  they  flew,  they  were  conscious  of  her.** 
.  .  .  "Aminta  drove  her  questioning  heart  as  a 
vessel  across  blank  circles  of  sea  where  there  was 
nothing  save  the  solitary  heart  for  answer."  In  no 
other  contemporary  English  fiction  do  we  come 
upon  passages  like  these,  and  realize  with  a  sudden 
pang  of  delight  that  we  are  in  the  region  of  poetry 
where  imaginative  beauty  is  an  end  in  itself. 

Very  often,  of  old,  it  was  Nature  that  enticed 
Mr.  Meredith  into  these  ravishing  escapades ;  in 
"Lord  Ormont*'  he  seems  pretty  nearly  to  have 
broken  with  Nature.  Yet,  now  and  then,  he  puts 
before  us  a  bit  of  the  outside  world  with  a  com- 
pression of  phrase,  a  brilliance  of  technique,  and  an 
imaginative  atmosphere,  not  easily  to  be  matched. 


74  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 


**  A  wind  was  rising.  The  trees  gave  their  swish  of 
leaves,  the  river  darkened  the  patch  of  wrinkles,  the 
bordering  flags  amid  the  reed-blades  dipped  and 
streamed.    .    .    . 

"The  trees  were  bending,  the  water  hissing,  the 
grasses  all  this  way  and  that,  like  the  hands  of  a 
delirious  people  in  surges  of  wreck.    .   .   . 

"  Thames  played  round  them  on  his  pastoral  pipes. 
Bee-note  and  woodside  blackbird,  and  meadow  cow, 
and  the  leap  of  the  fish  of  the  silver  rolling  rings,  com- 
posed the  music." 

But  often  as  Mr.  Meredith's  imagination  seeks 
and  realizes  the  beautiful,  it  still  more  often  w^orks 
in  the  grotesque,  and  decks  out  his  subject  with 
arabesque  detail.  His  satirical  comment  on  the 
life  he  portrays  finds  its  way  to  the  reader  through 
the  constant  innuendoes  of  figurative  language. 

**  She  probably  regarded  the  wedding  by  law  as  the 
end  a  woman  has  to  aim  at,  and  is  annihilated  by  hit- 
ting ;  one  flash  of  success  and  then  extinction,  like  a 
boy's  cracker  on  the  pavement.,  .   .   . 

"  Thither  he  walked,  a  few  minutes  after  noon,  pre- 
pared for  cattlshness.  .  .  .  He  would  have  to  crush 
her   if  she    humped    and    spat,    and    he    hoped  to  be 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  75 

By  Lewis  E.  Gates 

allowed  to  do  it  gently.  .  .  .  Lady  Charlotte  put  on 
her  hump  of  the  feline  defensive  j  then  his  batteries 
opened  fire  and  hers  barked  back  on  him." 

That  Mr.  Meredith  often  overworks  these  gro- 
tesque figures  even  his  warmest  admirers  must  admit. 
There  is  a  passage  in  the  opening  chapter  of 
**  Beauchamp's  Career,"  where  for  two  pages  he 
describes  the  creation  of  an  artificial  war-panic  under 
the  figure  of  *'  a  deliberate  saddling  of  our  ancient 
nightmare  of  Invasion."  Before  Mr.  Meredith 
consents  to  have  done  with  this  figure,  even  his 
most  obsequious  admirers  must  be  desolated  at  his 
persistence.  One  is  tempted  to  borrow  the  figure, 
and  to  call  this  kind  of  writing  Mr.  Meredith's 
nightmare  style,  when  a  figure  like  a  nightmare  gets 
the  bit  in  its  teeth  and  goes  racing  across  country 
with  the  author  madly  grimacing  on  its  back. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  imaginative  or  figurative 
quality  of  his  style  is  probably  what  costs  Mr. 
Meredith  most  readers.  His  perpetually  shifting 
brilliances  prove  very  wearisome  to  certain  eyes. 
He  is  too  much  of  a  flash-light,  or  has  too  much  of 
the  flourish  of  a  Roman  candle,  for  those  who  pride 
themselves  on  their  devotion  to  the  steady  effulgence 


76  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

of  the  petroleum  evening-lamp.  Hazlitt  used  to 
tell  people  who  objected  to  Spenser*  s  **  Faery 
Queen"  on  the  ground  of  the  allegory,  that,  after  all, 
the  poetry  was  good  poetry  and  the  allegory  would 
not  bite  them.  But  if  you  similarly  urge  upon  the 
objectors  to  Mr.  Meredith's  style,  that  a  story  of 
his  is  too  great  to  be  neglected  because  of  mere 
questions  of  phrasing,  they  are  very  likely  to  tell 
you  that  they  cannot  see  the  story  for  the  glare  of 
the  style  ;  just  there  lies  their  point. 

Undoubtedly,  at  times,  Mr.  Meredith  seems 
glaringly  wilful  in  his  rejection  of  ordinary  rhetori- 
cal canons  ;  there  is  something,  too,  of  a  flourish  in 
his  eccentricity ;  and  often,  apparently  out  of  sheer 
bravado,  he  inserts  in  his  stories  rollickingly  grotesque 
passages,  or  throws  at  the  critics  long  sentences  full 
of  the  clash  of  metaphors.  One  may  fancy  his 
exclaiming  with  Browning,  — 

"  Well,  British  public,  ye  that  like  me  not, 
(God  love  you  !)  and  will  have  your  proper  laugh 
At  the  dark  question,  laugh  it  !     I  laugh  first." 

But  after  all,  isn't  he  right  in  maintaining  his  in- 
dividuality against  all-comers  ?     Can   any   one  who 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


77 


By  Lewis  E.  Gates 


understands  the  true  nature  of  an  individual  style 
and  its  self- revealing  power,  wish  Mr.  Meredith's 
style  less  racy,  less  figurative,  less  original  ?  Surely, 
words  and  phrases  that  bear  the  impress  of  a  nature  like 
Mr.  Meredith's  are  better  worth  while  than  those  that 
have  become  smooth  and  shiny  with  conventional  use, 
—  always  providing  that  the  metal  be  twenty-carats 
fine.  The  intimacy  of  the  relation  that  Mr.  Meredith's 
style  makes  possible  between  ordinary  folk  and  a  great 
and  original  personality  is  something  that  cannot  be 
too  highly  prized  in  these  days  of  conventionality  and 
democratic  averages.  The  words  of  most  writers 
now-a-days  give  us  no  clew  to  their  individualities. 
"Tete-a-tete  with  Lady  Duberly  ?  "  exclaims  the 
man  in  the  play.  **  Nay,  sir,  tete-k-tete  with  ten- 
thousand  people."  Private  ownership  in  words  and 
phrases  seems  in  danger  of  becoming,  even  more 
speedily  than  private  ownership  in  land,  a  thing  of 
the  past.  The  distinction  of  Mr.  Meredith's  style 
is  something  to  be  devoutly  grateful  for.  One 
would  infinitely  rather  have  a  notion  of  the  world  as 
it  gives  an  account  of  itself  in  Mr.  Meredith's  mind, 
than  a  conventional  scheme  of  things  drawn  out  in 
the  stereotyped  phrases  of  the  rhetorician. 


78  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

Possibly,  however,  there  is  one  sound  reason  for 
wishing  that  Mr.  Meredith  would  be  just  a  little 
less  insistent  on  differences,  and  would  now  and  then 
"mitigate  the  rancor  of  his  tongue;"  that  reason 
is  based  on  the  fear  that  in  this  stupid  world  of  ours 
compromise  and  conventionality  are  needed  to  secure 
any  adequate  hearing.  It  seems  a  great  pity  that  so 
many  people  should  be  frightened  away  from  Mr. 
Meredith's  work  by  its  mannerism,  and  should  be 
oblivious  to  some  of  the  most  suggestive  current 
criticism  of  modern  life.  To  Americans  it  seems 
specially  to  be  regretted  that  English  people  should 
be  so  little  receptive  of  the  ideas  of  the  most  com- 
prehensive and  the  least  insular  of  their  novelists. 
Mr.  Meredith  has  grasped  English  life  in  its  whole 
range  and  in  all  its  vast  complexity.  He  has  dealt 
with  the  high  and  the  low,  with  rustic  and  cockney, 
with  plebeian  and  aristocrat,  with  the  world  of  letters 
and  the  world  of  art  and  the  world  of  fashion,  with 
the  modern  "conquerors'*  of  social  power  and 
position,  and  with  the  hereditarily  great.  All  this 
vast  range  of  life  he  has  portrayed  with  equal  vivid- 
ness and  with  the  same  unfailing  sympathy  and  in- 
sight ;  and  yet  his  point  of  view  is  always  curiously 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  79 

By    Lewis  E.  Gates 

beyond  the  radius  of  the  British  Isles,  and  many  of  his 
implications  are  by  no  means  favorable  to  the  pres- 
ent organization  of  English  social  and  political  life. 
Of  course,  it  may  be  this  very  lack  of  insularity  that 
prevents  a  better  understanding  between  him  and  his 
public.  Detachment  on  his  part  may  make  attach- 
ment on  their  part  impossible.  And  yet  this  ought 
not  to  be  so  ;  for  despite  his  occasional  severities  and 
the  all-pervading  independence  and  individuality  of 
his  tone,  no  one  has  loved  English  life  more  heartily, 
studied  it  more  painstakingly,  or  represented  it  more 
patriotically.  Indeed,  certain  of  its  important  as- 
pects can  be  found  adequately  portrayed  only  in 
Mr.  Meredith's  pages ;  for  example,  the  genuine 
irresponsibleness  of  the  most  brilliant  English  life. 
No  other  novels  offer  us  such  pictures  of  the  w^orld 
of  the  luxuriously  idle  and  systematically  frivolous, 
of  the  habits  and  homes  of  the  people  who  have 
never  been  wont  to  give  an  account  of  themselves  to 
others,  who  have  made  idling  into  a  fine  art,  and 
feel  that  the  land  exists  for  them  to  shoot  over, 
and  the  sea  for  them  to  sail  on  in  yachts.  The 
so-called  society-novelist  succeeds  admirably  with  the 
gowns   and  the   edquette   of  this   region,  but  gives 


8o  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

us  for  its  inhabitants  a  lamentable  lot  of  insipidities. 
But  Mr.  Meredith's  aristocrats  have  brains  as  well 
as  deportment  and  decorations  ;  they  have  the 
mental  and  moral  idiom,  the  wit  and  the  culture  and 
the  weight  of  men  of  birth  and  position,  their  pre- 
judices, too,  and  perversities.  That  some  wildness 
and  even  rankness  of  style  should  keep  the  British 
public  from  enjoying  Mr.  Meredith's  vigorous  and 
sympathetic  studies  of  its  idolized  "upper  classes** 
seems  strange ;  and  even  more  regrettable  than 
strange  it  seems  to  those  who  find  running  all 
through  Mr.  Meredith's  patriotic  portrayal  subtle 
insinuations  of  a  criticism  of  English  life  most  un- 
insular  in  its  tenor  and  most  salutary  in  its  drift. 

As  to  the  precise  value  of  the  lesson  latent  in 
"Lord  Ormont,"  there  is,  of  course,  much  dubious 
questioning  possible.  The  points  at  issue,  however, 
are  of  a  kind  on  which  perhaps  only  the  Ulysses  of 
the  matrimonial  ocean,  "  much- experienced  men" 
in  the  storms  and  sunshine  of  married  life,  are  in  a 
condition  to  pronounce.  Nevertheless  ordinary 
people  may  at  least  admire  the  conscientious  care 
with  which  Mr.  Meredith  has  safeguarded  his 
dangerous   advice   and    his    somewhat    revolutionary 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  8i 

By  Lewis  E.  Gates 

plea  for  the  freedom  of  woman.  His  preceding 
novel,  "  One  of  our  Conquerors,"  was  from  first  to 
last  a  strenuously  faithful  study  of  the  penalties  that 
follow  infringement  of  social  conventions  in  the 
matter  of  marriage.  The  book  might  have  been 
named  "Mrs.  Burman's  Revenge."  Mrs.  Burman 
concentrated  in  her  unprepossessing  person  all  the 
mighty  forces  of  prejudice  which  the  society  of  the 
western  world  puts  into  play  to  protect  one  of  its 
sacred  institutions,  marriage.  Poor  Nataly,  who 
had  ventured  after  happiness  outside  of  conventional 
limits,  lost  happiness  and  finally  life  itself  solely 
through  her  agonizingly  persistent  consciousness  of  her 
faise  adjustment  to  her  social  environment.  She  had 
built  her  house  below  the  level  of  the  dikes,  to  use 
Weyburn's  metaphor,  and  the  ever-present  danger 
wore  upon  her  and  sapped  her  life. 

Having  thus  set  forth  with  the  elaborateness  of 
a  three-volume  novel,  and  with  the  utmost  power  of 
his  imagination,  the  almost  resistless  might  of  social 
conventions,  their  importance,  and  the  danger  of 
defying  them,  Mr.  Meredith  in  his  last  book  ven- 
tures to  plead  for  the  individual  against  society, 
and  to  assert  the  right  of  the  individual  occasionally 

6 


8z  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

to  rebel  against  a  blindly  tyrannizing  convention. 
'•■  Laws  are  necessary  instruments  of  the  majority  ; 
but  when  they  grind  the  sane  human  being  to 
dust  for  their  maintenance,  their  enthronement  is 
the  rule  of  the  savage's  old  deity,  sniffing  blood- 
sacrifice.  '  * 

The  case  of  immolation  that  Mr.  Meredith 
studies  is  meant,  despite  some  very  special  features, 
to  be  typical.  The  veteran  Lord  Ormont  stands  as 
the  representative,  the  most  polished  and  prepossess- 
ing representative  possible,  of  the  class  of  men  for 
whom  woman  is  still  merely  the  daintiest,  the  most 
exquisite  toy  that  a  benevolent  Providence  has 
created  for  the  delectation  of  the  sons  of  Adam. 
Weyburn  is  the  ideal  modern  man  of  **  spiritual 
valiancy,"  every  whit  as  vigorous  and  virile  as  Lord 
Ormont,  but  mentally  and  morally  of  immeasurably 
greater  flexibility,  and  keenly  alive  to  the  needs  of  his 
time  and  the  signs  of  social  change.  He,  too,  is 
doubtless  meant  to  be  a  type,  —  so  far  as  Mr.  Mere- 
dith allows  himself  in  character-drawing  the  some- 
what dangerous  luxury  of  types  ;  he  is  to  be  taken 
as  the  most  efficient  possible  member  of  a  modern 
social  organization,  where  the  standards  of  individual 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  83 

By  Lewis  E.   Gates 

excellence  are  fixed,  not  primarily  by  the  organism's 
need  of  defence  against  external  foes,  but  by  what  is 
requisite    for    the    inner    expansion    and    peaceful 
evolution  of  society.     Aminta,  <'the  most  beautiful 
woman  of  her  time,**  has  been  half-secretly  married 
to  Lord  Ormont  in  the  Spanish  legation  at  Madrid, 
after  a  few  weeks  of  travelling  courtship ;  forthwith 
she  has  become  in  his  eyes  his  Aminta,  his  lovely 
Xarifa,  his  beautiful  slave,  whom  his  soul  delighteth 
to    honor,  —  with   ever  a   due  sense  of  the  make- 
^  believe    character    of  her   sovereignty    and   with    a 
™  changelessly    cynical     conviction     of    the     essential 
^  inferiority    of    the    feminine    nature.       From     his 
H   "  knighdy  amatory  *'   adulation,  from  the  caressing 
glances  of  his  **  old-world  eye  upon  women,'*  from 
|H   ^^^  **  massive   selfishness  and   icy  inaccessibility    to 
emotion,**  Aminta  finally  revolts,  and  takes  refuge 
with  Weyburn  because  with  him  she  finds  "com- 
prehension,**   "encouragement,**    "life    and    air,'* 
IV   freedom  to  "use  her  qualities.**      "His  need  and 
her   need    rushed    together  somewhere    down    the 
skies.'* 

Doubtless,  all  this  seems  dangerously  near  the  old 
doctrine  of  elective   affinities,    on  which   organized 


84  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.  Meredith  and  his  Aminta 

society  has  never  looked  kindly.  But  once  more 
we  cannot  but  admire  the  care  with  which  Mr. 
Meredith  has  limited  his  acceptance  and  recommen- 
dation of  the  principle.  If  it  is  to  be  operative  only 
in  a  society  in  which  a  schoolmaster  of  spiritual 
valiancy  is  the  popular  hero,  the  ideal  of  manhood, 
and  in  which  the  most  beautiful  women  of  their 
time  desert  famous  military  leaders  to  become  part- 
owners  in  boarding-schools,  Mr.  Meredith  can 
hardly  be  accused  of  recommending  very  serious  or 
far-reaching  changes  in  the  present  state  of  the 
marriage   contract. 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  special  moral  of 
the  book,  the  nobly  optimistic  tone  of  the  whole  is 
inspiriting.  Mr.  Meredith's  vigorous  optimism  and 
his  suggestion  of  endless  vistas  of  social  progress  con- 
trast curiously  with  Mr.  Hardy's  harping  on  the 
age  of  the  earth,  Druidical  ruins,  and  the  irony  of  a 
cruel  Nature.  Mr.  Meredith,  like  his  own  Wey- 
burn,  is  "one  of  the  lovers  of  life,  beautiful  to  be- 
hold, w^hen  we  spy  into  them ;  generally  their 
aspect  is  an  enlivenment,  whatever  may  be  the 
carving  of  their  features,"  or,  we  may  add,  the 
eccentricity  of  their  style.      He  is  one  of  those  who 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


85 


By  Lewis  E.  Gates 


**  have  a  cold  morning  on  their  foreheads,'*  and 
whose  '*  gaze  is  to  the  front  in  hungry  animation." 
His  optimism  is  doubly  grateful  because  it  is  not  the 
optimism  of  untempered  youth,  but,  like  Browning's, 
the  optimism  of  a  man  who  has  sounded  and  tried 
life  in  all  its  shallows  and  depths,  has  sailed  far  and 
wide  over  its  surface,  and  yet  possesses  a  genuine 
Ulysses-like  hunger  for  achievement  and  belief  in 
its  worth.  In  this  age  when  the  decadents  like  the 
Philistines  be  upon  us,  and  when  the  weariness  of 
much  learning  and  of  much  feeling  weighs  down  so 
many  eyelids,  it  seems  strange  that  the  virility  and 
vigor  and  courage  of  Mr.  Meredith  do  not  find 
welcome  everywhere  among  the  sane-minded. 


The  Popularity  of  Poetry 

By 

Edmund  Gosse 


I 

I 


THE   POPULARITY   OF   POETRY. 

TS  the  commercial  standard  of  literary  success  to  be 
-■•  extended  to  poetry  ?  This  is  a  question  that  is 
raised  by  the  peculiar  conditions  which  have  devel- 
oped during  the  last  two  years,  and  it  is  one  which 
it  is  important  to  attempt  to  solve.  If  poetry  is  to 
be  judged  by  the  extent  to  which  it  is  sold,  and  es- 
pecially in  relation  to  the  sales  of  prose  fiction,  then 
it  must  be  admitted  at  once  to  be  in  a  very  sad  quan- 
dary indeed.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  status  of 
poetry  is  to  be  discovered  by  a  consideration  of  the 
degree  to  which  it  is  talked  about  and  written  about, 
then  no  branch  of  contemporary  literature  would 
seem  to  be  more  flourishing.  It  is  desirable  to  at- 
tempt to  define  what  literary  popularity  is,  and  then 
to  see  how  far  the  poets  of  to-day  enjoy  a  share 
of  it. 

In  its  original  meaning  **  popularity  "  signifies  a 
courting  of  the  popular  favor ;  it  is  only  in  its  mod- 
ern and  secondary  use  that  the  word  takes  the  sense 
of  a  gaining  of  that  good- will.  Our  old  writers  em- 
ployed the  word  with  a  certain  flavor  of  obsequious- 

89 


90  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry 

ness  hanging  about  it.  Among  the  Elizabethans  to 
be  "  popular ' '  was  to  have  resigned  something  of 
the  dignity  of  independent  judgment.  We  have  lost 
all  that  in  these  democratic  days,  and  he  is  held  the 
most  honorable  man  who  has  contrived  to  please 
the  largest  number  of  individual  voters,  and  that 
book  the  most  successful  which  has  appealed  to  the 
largest  number  of  readers.  Yet,  even  with  us,  liter- 
ary popularity  has  not  quite  come  to  be  synonymous 
with  largeness  of  sales.  We  are  not  so  mechanically 
statistical,  even  in  the  matter  of  our  novels,  and  there 
are  writers  whose  works  sell  in  vast  masses,  who  en- 
joy a  kind  of  blind,  contemptuous  success,  and  who 
yet  are  scarcely  to  be  called  "popular."  There  are 
writers,  too,  of  comic  or  sentimental  verse,  who  are 
never  mentioned  among  the  poets,  whose  sales, 
nevertheless,  by  far  exceed  those  of  Mr.  Swinburne. 
I  remember  how  once,  in  the  sacred  Lodge  of  Trin- 
ity, and  to  the  face  of  its  fastidious  master,  the  late 
Lord  Houghton  contended  that  the  most  prominent 
living  poet  of  England  was  the  writer  of  a  song  called 
"The  Old  Obadiah  and  the  Young  Obadiah." 

At  the  moment  when  this  whimsical  theory  was 
put  forth,  England  possessed  a  poet  of  unsurpassed 


I 
I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  91 

By  Edmund  Gosse 

popularity.  The  case  of  Tennyson  was  a  singular 
and,  for  future  generations,  a  disturbing  one.  As 
we  look  down  the  history  of  our  country,  we  may 
be  surprised  to  see  how  few  of  our  greatest  bards 
have  enjoyed  wide  popular  favor  in  their  life-time. 
Neither  Shakespeare  nor  Milton,  neither  Words- 
worth nor  Coleridge,  neither  Shelley  nor  Keats,  had 
any  experience  of  general  public  acceptance.  Dry- 
den  and  Ben  Jonson  were  illustrious,  —  they  were 
scarcely  popular.  Among  our  really  ambitious 
writers  in  verse,  Cowley  and  Pope,  Burns  and  Byron, 
and  in  his  latest  years  Robert  Browning,  have  alone 
enjoyed  great  popularity  at  all  approaching  that  of 
Tennyson  ;  and  of  these  Burns  is  the  most  remark- 
able in  this  respect.  Tennyson  and  Burns,  a  couple 
strangely  assorted,  —  these  are  the  two  great  names 
in  poetry  which  have  achieved,  by  purely  poetic 
qualities,  a  lasting  approbation  from  the  people  of 
Great  Britain. 

In  the  case  of  Burns,  as  in  that  of  Be'ranger  in 
France,  the  charm  of  the  pure,  natural  lyric,  uttered 
in  the  quintessence  of  its  naivete  may  be  allowed 
to  account  for  much  of  the  popular  acceptation.  The 
universality  of  Tennyson  is  a  more  difficult  problem. 


94  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry 

and  one  on  which  criticism  has  expended  much 
speculation.  The  main  thing  at  this  moment  is  to 
admit  and  to  note  that  popularity,  and  to  see  whether 
it  is  likely  to  be  continued  to  later  writers.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  highly  important  to  recognize  that  in 
the  history  of  our  poetry,  now  extending  over  at 
least  six  centuries,  it  has  by  no  means  been  the  rule 
that  what  was  ultimately  to  be  found  incomparable 
received  any  special  attention  at  the  time  of  its  pro- 
duction. Some  poets  have  been  mildly  admired  for 
a  portion  of  their  writings  which  we  now  regret  that 
they  should  have  produced,  and  have  not  been  ad- 
mired at  all  for  their  masterpieces.  There  is  evi- 
dence to  show  that  the  exquisite  lyrics  of  Herrick 
were  not  valued  during  his  lifetime  for  any  of  the 
qualities  which  we  now  universally  discern  in  them. 
Moore  was  greatly  preferred  to  Shelley,  not  merely 
until  the  death  of  Shelley,  but  until  long  after  the 
death  of  Moore.  Much  poetry  becomes  good,  be- 
cause public  taste  develops  in  the  direction  in  which 
it  was  written ;  still  more  ceases  to  please,  because 
the  order  of  its  thoughts  and  images  is  no  longer  in 
fashion.  Criticism  likes  to  conceive  that  its  dicta  are 
final,    and     talks    familiarly    about    "immortality.** 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  93 

By  Edmund  Gosse 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  certain  even  of  the 
old  masters  who  are  still  on  their  probation,  and  a 
great  social  crisis  might  dethrone  half  Parnassus. 

The  death  of  Tennyson,  following  so  closely  on 
those  of  Browning  and  Matthew  Arnold,  produced  a 
violent  and  disturbing  crisis  in  our  poetical  history. 
At  the  first  moment,  in  the  agitation  caused  by  the 
disappearance  of  these  extremely  dignified  figures, 
and  particularly  by  the  extinction  of  Tennyson,  the 
critics  rashly  asserted  that  poetry  had  ceased  to  de- 
velop ;  that  it  would  henceforward  be  the  pastime 
^t  of  children  ;  and  that  it  could  no  longer  form  a  vital 
branch  of  our  literature.      Almost  immediately  it  was 

I  perceived  that  whatever  might  happen,  a  neglect  of 
verse  was  not  imminent.  We  had  long  served  under 
K  a  gerantocracy,  a  tyranny  by  very  old  men.  These 
venerable  figures  once  removed,  attention  became 
fixed  on  men  of  the  youngest  generation.  When  all 
the  ancient  trees  have  fallen  in  the  forest,  the  sturdi- 
lest  saplings  have  room  to  expand.  Of  these  some 
may  be  oaks  and  some  may  be  alders,  but  all  have  a 
chance  at  last.  We  have  seen  no  visible  increase  of 
public  interest  in  the  poets  who  already  held  high 
second  or  third  rank   (although  the  extreme  respect 


94  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry 

with  which  the  announcement  of  Christina  Rossetti's 
death  was  received  points  to  an  understratum  of  ap- 
preciation for  these),  but  we  have  certainly  seen  a 
sudden  access  of  reputation  among  writers  between 
thirty-five  and  twenty-five  years  of  age.  The  pen- 
dulum of  taste  is  ever  swinging,  and  from  the  opinion 
that  no  one  under  eighty  was  worth  reading,  we 
have  come  to  regard  no  one  over  thirty  as  deserving 
our  attention. 

It  will  be  unfortunate,  I  think,  if  the  poets  allow 
themselves  to  be  disturbed  by  the  conditions  of  crisis 
through  which  we  are  now  passing.  I  deprecate 
the  use  of  phrases  such  as  hail  one  or  two  young 
versemen  as  :  **  Swans  emerging  from  the  ruck  of 
geese.**  A  swan  may  once  have  been  an  ugly  duck- 
ling ;  he  has  never  been  a  goose,  and  exaggerations 
of  this  kind  tend  to  encourage  what  is  by  far  the 
most  dangerous  tendency  of  the  literature  of  to-day, 
its  commercial  greediness.  Coleridge,  in  his  old 
age,  told  a  friend  of  mine,  who  was  then  young, 
that  he  had  never  been  one  shilling  the  better  off 
for  all  the  verse  he  had  ever  printed.  Mr.  Dykes 
Campbell  will  tell  us  that  this  was  an  error  of  mem- 
ory, but  practically  speaking  it  was  true.     In  our 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  95 

By  Edmund  Gosse 

own  century,  surrounded  by  admirers,  living  long 
past  maturity,  here  was  one  of  the  truest  poets  of 
England  confessing  that  poetry  had  been  not  so  much 
a  failure  to  him  as  a  bankruptcy.  Browning,  to  the 
very  end  of  his  days,  through  the  period  of  his  splen- 
did late  celebrity,  could  never  have  lived,  however 
modestly,  on  what  his  poetry  put  into  his  pocket. 
These  are  the  instances  which  the  poet  should  bear 
in  mind,  nor  allow  himself  to  be  dazzled  by  the  al- 
most inexplicable  and  entirely  exceptional  success  of 
the  career  of  Tennyson. 

We  are  told  that  this  is  not  a  poetical  age,  nor 
ours  a  poetical  country.  No  country  and  no  age  is 
poetical.  If  England  is  badly  off",  I  have  yet  to  learn 
that  France  or  America,  Italy  or  Germany,  is  in  a 
more  fortunate  condition.  In  one  of  these  countries, 
in  Italy,  as  in  England,  it  is  true  that  attention  is 
concentrated  on  certain  young  men  of  the  latest  gen- 
eration. It  is  in  Italy  only,  I  think,  that  our 
youngest  poets  meet  with  rivals  of  their  own  value. 
Gabriele  d'Annunzio  and  Rudyard  Kipling  are 
probably  the  most  gifted  persons  under  the  age  of 
thirty  now  writing  verses  in  any  part  of  the  world. 
/The  Italians  loudly   praise   the  author   of  "  Elegie 


96  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry 

Romane,"  but  if  they  buy  his  volumes  to  any  ap- 
preciable extent,  I  am  greatly  misinformed.  He  is 
what  Carducci  and  Panzacchi  were  before  him,  dis- 
tinguished and  illustrious,  but  not  successful  as  the 
**  female  fictionist ' '  understands  success.  No  Italian 
poet,  I  think,  in  this  day  of  the  revival  of  Italian 
poetry,  makes  what  could  be  called  an  appreciable 
income  by  his  verse. 

It  would  be  indecorous  to  push  the  inquiry  so  far 
as  to  speculate  how  the  increased  interest  in  verse 
affects  the  pockets  of  our  own  younger  poets.  One 
hopes  that  they  are  fed  with  the  flour  of  returns  as 
well  as  with  the  honey  of  renown.  But  one  doubts 
whether  their  pretty  **  limited  editions,"  their  cho- 
ruses of  praise,  their  various  celebrity,  are  symptoms 
of  more  than  a  very  moderate  popularity.  They 
would  think  it  unkind  if  one  were  to  say  that  one 
wished  them  no  more  pudding  than  their  great  fore- 
fathers enjoyed.  In  point  of  fact,  one  wishes  for 
every  true  artist  the  maximum  of  practical  apprecia- 
tion of  his  art.  But  if  they  break  their  hearts  be- 
cause they  are  not  Tennyson,  they  will  be  silly 
fellows.  A  poet  need  feel  no  sense  of  failure  because 
his  books  do  not  lie  on  every  parlor-table  in  Bromp- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  97 

By  Edmund  Gosse 

ton,  or  because  no  movement  is  made  towards  his 
being  called  up  into  the  House  of  Lords.  Success 
in  poetry  has  not  been,  and  we  may  hope  that  it 
never  will  be,  a  matter  in  which  income-tax  collec- 
tors can  take  an  interest. 

More,  perhaps,  than  any  other  species  of  litera- 
ture, poetry  ought  to  be  its  own  exceeding  great 
reward.  The  verseman  should  write  his  verse  with 
no  other  thought  in  his  mind  than  that  of  relieving 
his  heart  of  metrical  pangs  too  acutely  delicious  to  be 
B  borne.  The  verse  being  written,  and  then  printed, 
the  poet  has  done  his  work.  He  ought  to  have  no 
further  solicitude.     He  has  adventured  in  a  kind  of 

I  writing  in  which  less  than  in  any  other  the  element 
of  ephemeral  interest  exists.  If  his  stanzas  are  of 
true  excellence,  they  will  be  as  much  admired  in 
1945  as  in  1895,  and  perhaps  more  so.  The  best 
poetry  does  not  grow  old-fashioned.  The  poet 
should  consider  that  he  is  not  engaged  in  the  timid 
coasting- trade  of  the  novelist ;  he  has  put  out  on  the 
vast  seas,  and  if  the  risks  of  sinking  are  great,  there 
I  Vis  the  chance  of  reaching  the  Golden  Isles.  He 
works,  we  will  not  say  for  immortality,  since  that 
is  a  vague  and  uncertain  phrase,  but  for  the  future, 


98  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Popularity  of  Poetry 


and  he  ought  to  be  content  to  miss  the  more  facile 
successes  of  the  immediate  present.  Poetry,  after 
all,  is  not  a  democratic  art.  It  appeals  to  the  few, 
it  "makes  great  music,*'  as  Keats  puts  it,  **  for  a 
little  clan,"  and  it  can  by  no  means  be  sure,  in  the 
wild  hurly-burly  of  our  life,  immediately  to  win  the 
attention  of  those  elect  ears.  But  good  verse,  once 
printed,  is  never  lost ;  sooner  or  later  it  is  discovered, 
and  fixed,  like  a  jewel,  into  its  proper  drawer  in  the 
cabinet  of  the  ages.  To  last  forever,  as  a  specimen, 
by  the  side  of  Lovelace  or  of  Wolfe,  should  be  bet- 
ter worth  working  for  than  to  earn  five  thousand 
pounds  as  the  author  of  a  deciduous  novel  about  the 
"New  Woman."  At  all  events,  the  poet  had 
better  try  to  think  so,  for  the  financial  prosperity 
can  by  no  possible  chance  be  his. 


Concerning  Me  and  the 

Metropolis 
By 
Louise  Imogen  Guiney 


CONCERNING   ME   AND   THE 
METROPOLIS. 

IT  is  my  wish  tq  make  a  confession,  an  extraor- 
^  dinary  one  for  an  American,  to  wit :  I  am  no 
lover  of  Paris.  This  is  putting  it  mildly.  I  had 
never  misery  elsewhere  of  which  I  could  not  get, 
and  hold,  the  upper  hand.  Now  we  were  there 
under  pleasantest  conditions,  at  good  headquarters, 
within  reach  of  things  I  profess  to  love  :  the 
crowd,  the  studios,  the  concerts  and  cafe's,  the  lights 
of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  the  parks,  the  Louvre, 
the  river-boats,  the  circuses,  the  old  schools,  the 
National  Library.  We  had  sweet  weather  ;  we  had 
health,  youth,  leisure  ;  we  had  a  menu  ;  O  shade  of 
LAngry  Cat  !  (which,  you  must  know,  is  French  for 
the  best  of  kings,  Henry  of  Navarre)  what  a  menu 
we  did  have  !  But  over  me  and  my  hitherto  unper- 
turbed jollity  there  fell  a  deadly  melancholy.  My 
family  shopped  and  sported,  while  I  stood  amid  a 

xoi 


I02  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Concerning  Me  and  the  Metropolis 

thousand  wheels  in  the  Carrefour  Montmartre,  or  in 
the  lee  of  Moliere's  fountained  house-wall,  with  tears 
bursting  down  these  indignant  and  constitutionally 
arid  cheeks.  All  day  I  wandered  about  alone,  like 
a  lunatic  or  a  lover  ;  by  night  I  slept  little,  and  had 
visions  weird  and  gory.  This  lasted  an  entire 
autumn,  which  I  count  as  lost  out  of  my  life,  and 
during  which  I  never  once  could  lay  salt  on  the 
tail  of  what  had  been  myself.  Something  in  that 
nervous  latitude  knocked  out  my  congenital  stoicism ; 
I  began  to  have  all  manner  of  unmanageable  emotions, 
like  an  eighteenth-century  heroine  with  the  spleen  or 
the  vapors  ;  I  was  more  sentient,  more  intelligent, 
more  humanistic,  more  capable  of  vast  virtues  and 
vices  than  would  have  seemed  credible  to  the  New 
England  which  bred  me  upon  her  sacred  bean.  A 
violent  quarrelsomeness  possessed  me  ;  whatever  I 
saw  and  heard  was  an  irritation  ;  I  believe  I  could 
have  offered,  in  all  soberness,  to  reform  the  Com^die 
Frangaise,  to  unbuild  the  Tour  Saint-Jacques,  and  to 
fight  the  Immortals,  man  by  man.  The  bearing  and 
gesture  of  the  polite  wee  police  were  odious  in  my 
eyes,  and  the  parlous  Parisian  nurslings  appeared 
insufferably   like  goblins.      Frequently,  I  would  fall 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  103 


By  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 


literally  on  the  neck  of  that  dear  little  bronze  Faun 
tiptoeing  at  the  entrance  to  the  Gardens  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg, on  the  side  of  the  Boule-Miche,  scolding  him 
fiercely  for  being  able  to  live  and  smile  and  dance 
in  fatal  Paris! 

And  the  unwonted  behavior  of  me,  the  upside- 
downing  and  inside-outing  of  whatever  I  had 
fondly  supposed  to  be  my  "ways"!  It  is  to 
be  desired,  in  general,  that  I  were  a  less  un- 
spiritual  creature ;  but  there,  at  least,  I  haunted 
the  great  churches,  especially  Saint-Sulpice,  with  its 
solemn  evensong  borne  on  six  hundred  voices  of 
seminarian  men  and  boys.  Whereas  I  had  ever 
the  relish  of  a  genuine  antiquary  for  tombs  and  epi- 
taphs, I  bolted  incontinently  from  the  beaded  wreaths 
of  P^re-la- Chaise,  and  paid  with  a  fit  of  shuddering 
for  my  propinquity  to  historic  ashes  in  Saint-Denis. 
It  would  confound  any  of  my  acquaintances  to  be 
told  that  I  was  a  misanthrope  or  a  royalist ;  yet  I 
used  to  look  after  the  ominous,  noisy,  big-hatted, 
blue-chinned,  whip-cracking  cabbies,  and  grind  my 
teeth  at  them  as  at  the  whole  incarnate  Revolution, 
which  they  instantly  bring  to  mind.  As  for  the 
Louvre,  it  gave  me  no  comfort ;  I  crossed  its  thresh- 


I04  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Concerning  Me  and  the  Metropolis 

old  but  seldom,  for  it  tore  me  in  pieces  with  the 
unbearable  glory  on  its  walls. 

In  fine,  Paris  had  about  driven  me  mad.  While 
I  strolled  the  Quarter,  I  had  for  company,  step  for 
step,  now  Abelard,  now  Jacques  de  Molay  and  his 
Templars,  now  the  Maid,  now  Coligny  or  Guise, 
now  the  Girondists  and  Andr^  Chenier  :  the  long 
procession  of  the  wronging  and  the  wronged,  the  dis- 
illusioned, the  slain,  which  belongs  to  those  altered 
and  brightened  streets.  Strange  theories  inhabited 
me ;  I  was  no  crass  optimist  any  more.  My  head 
hummed  with  the  tragic  warning  of  Bossuet,  which 
Persius  uttered  before  him,  that  at  the  bottom  of  every 
knowable  thing  was  nothingness.  And  all  this  with 
a  bun  in  one  fist,  and  in  the  other  a  gem  of  a  duo- 
decimo, bought  at  the  quays  for  three  sous,  with  a 
cloudless  sky  above,  and  every  incentive,  including 
poverty,  towards  fullest  content  and  exhilaration. 

In  London  I  had  been  happy,  and  **  clad  in  com- 
plete steel  "  against  such  alien  moods  as  these.  And 
to  London,  eventually,  I  had  to  go  back,  although 
M.  S.,  who  lives  for  art  and  Chicago,  and  who 
always  knows  what 's  what,  compared  me  to  a  spook 
with  no  stomach  for  Paradise,  whimpering  for  Hades 


I 

■ 

I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  105 

By  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 

and  the  sooty  company  thereof.  But  in  London  I 
was  calm,  normal,  free,  as  by  some  eternal  paradox. 

One  door  in  Paris  I  regretted  to  leave,  for  I  went 
almost  daily,  like  Litde  Billee  and  his  cheerful  col- 
leagues, to  the  Morgue.  I  should  have  become  a 
great  novelist,  had  I  taken  my  chances  there  a  bit 
longer  !  Next  to  the  Morgue,  I  was  loath  to  part 
with  the  bridges,  over  which  goes  so  much  laughing 
and  shining  life,  under  which  so  much  mystery  is 
forever  being  fished  up  by  aid  of  the  torch  and  the 
prong.  Ah,  those  men  and  women,  stung,  from  the 
beginning,  by  the  scorpions  in  that  smooth,  clean, 
treacherous  air,  and  asking  of  the  Seine  water  that  it 
should  quench  immaterial  fires ! 

So  long  as  I  have  an  eye  to  my  own  longevity  and 
peace,  I  shall  never  put  foot  in  Paris.  Moreover, 
the  place  is  painful,  as  having  shaken  to  the  base  my 
smug  opinion  of  myself.  It  taught  me  my  moral 
ticklishness,  and  shrunk  me  into  less  than  a  cosmop- 
olite ;  though  I  make  puns  again,  I  do  so  humbly, 
and  out  of  a  psychic  experience.  Nor  must  the  item 
go  unrecorded  that  I  had  a  French  ancestor,  an  un- 
important personage  remembered  not  then  so  much 
as  since.     He  was  born  on  the  borders  of  Provence ; 


io6  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


Concerning  Me  and  the  Metropolis 

what  Paris  was  to  him,  or  whether  he  ever  be- 
held it,  I  know  not.  It  is  possible  that  he  may 
have  burned  his  fingers  there,  and  that  his  bully- 
ing spirit  imposed  upon  mine  this  fantastic  attrac- 
tion of  repulsion,  this  irrational  hatred  of  what  I 
knew  all  the  time  to  be  the  most  animated,  the 
most  consistent,  and  the  most  beautiful  city  in  the 
world. 


"  Trilby  " 

By 

Louise  Imogen  Guiney 


«  TRILBY '» 

«'  T^RILBY  "  is  two  things.  It  is  a  little,  simple, 
*  light-hearted  story,  lop-sided,  discursive, 
having  breaks  and  patches ;  and  it  is  also  already  a 
masterpiece  hors  concours,  so  that  when  you  come 
before  it,  the  only  sage  remark  you  can  make  is 
dumb-show  :  that  is,  you  may  with  great  propriety 
take  off  your  hat.  Its  background  is  so  treated  that  it 
takes  rank  as  a  new  thing  in  English  fiction.  Others 
since  Miirger  have  attempted  to  draw  the  life  of  the 
Quarter,  but  none  with  this  blitheness  and  winning 
charm,  not  even  Mr.  Henry  Harland  (Sidney 
Luska)  in  his  idyllic  "Land  of  Love,"  which  de- 
serves to  be  better  known.  The  spirit  of  *'  Trilby" 
is  the  very  essence  of  the  best  old  English  humor,  as 
if  Fielding,  Steele,  and  Thackeray  had  collaborated 
upon  it  in  Paradise  (forgetting  just  a  litde  the  rules 
of  their  mundane  grammar,  the  conditions  of  their 
mundane  style  !)  and  transfused  into  it  their  robust 
manly  gayety  and  their  understanding  tenderness  of 

109 


no  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

"Trilby"  ' 

heart.  Indeed,  its  every  page  seems  to  breathe  forth 
Thackeray's  darling  axiom  :  **  Fun  is  good  ;  Truth 
is  better;  Love  is  best  of  all."  It  is  a  capital  illus- 
tration of  the  capital  French  thesis  that  a  subject 
counts  for  nothing,  but  that  the  treatment  of  a  sub- 
ject counts  for  everything.  Let  the  average  reader- 
ess,  a  person  of  conventions,  go  through  **  Trilby  '* 
from  cover  to  cover.  Her  attitude  at  the  end  is 
Mrs.  Bagot's  own  :  affectionate  and  bewildered 
surrender.  "Trilby**  itself  is  what  its  heroine 
ingenuously  calls  the  "altogether."  It  is  an  ele- 
mental human  book,  staged  without  costumes,  attrac- 
tive for  no  spurious  attribute,  but  only  through  its 
gentleness  and  candor.  It  constrains  talk,  only 
because  it  has  so  strengthened  feeling. 

As  for  the  tone  of  it,  it  has  escaped  mysticism,  by 
great  good  fortune.  Hypnotism,  apprehended  and 
faintly  feared  from  the  first,  is  used  with  an  exquis- 
itely abstinent  touch.  There  is  nowhere  too  much 
of  it,  and  therefore  it  becomes  credible  and  tragic. 
Svengali's  evil  influence  hangs  over  the  victim  whom 
it  glorifies,  like  a  premonition  of  the  Greeks,  formless, 
having  no  precisely  indicated  end  or  beginning.  His 
soul  passes  ;  and  the  music  in  her  forsakes  her  on  the 


I 

I 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  iii 

By  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 

instant,  and  passes  with  him.  You  are  not  told  this ; 
you  gather  it.  The  tale  is  crowded  with  these  infer- 
ences, and  the  dullest  or  cleverest  reader  is  alike 
flattered  at  finding  them.  So  with  the  relationship 
of  Little  Billee  and  his  stricken  Trilby,  fading  away 
among  the  cheery  and  loyal  painters  who  take  pleas- 
ure yet  in  her  perfections  :  there  is  not,  in  the  writ- 
ten record,  so  much  as  a  private  look  or  sigh  between 
the  two  any  more;  only  Trilby's  saddened  confes- 
sion to  a  third  person  that  her  girlish  bosom  had 
subdued  itself  at  last  to  a  meek,  motherly  yearning 
over  her  wild  little  worshipper,  who  nearly  won  her 
at  the  nineteenth  asking. 

The  final  chapters  are  out  of  proportion  ;  chance, 
or  weariness,  led  the  author  to  hurry  his  thoroughly 
interesting  hero  oiF  the  scene  in  a  few  nervous  para- 
graphs. But  even  this  is  no  serious  defect,  for  the 
general  impression  must  be  maintained ;  a  prolonged 
soft  orchestral  strain  for  Litde  Billee  would  be  mere 
sentiment,  and  episodic,  the  significance  of  "  Trilby  " 
having  ended  in  Trilby's  dying  with  the  wrong  name 
upon  her  lips.  Every  part  of  the  wonderful  story 
is  unconsciously  managed  with  artistic  reference  to 
the  whole  j   its  incidents  are  as  rich  in  meaning  as 


112 CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

"Trilby" 

you  care  to  consider  them.  Trilby  opens  her 
heart  to  the  Laird,  and  is  most  lover-like  with  him 
who  is  most  brotherly.  Her  mother,  poor  lass,  was 
an  aristocrat  with  the  bar  sinister ;  her  clerical 
father,  a  bibulous  character  enchantingly  outlined, 
was  her  only  authority  for  her  disbelief  in  dogma. 
No  stress  is  laid  on  these  characteristics  and  con- 
ditions ;  but  they  tell.  Taffy  preserves  an  English 
silence  when  Gecko  speaks  his  soulful  and  spills 
over.  You  half  resent  the  hearty  postlude,  through 
your  own  too  acute  memory  of  what  is  past.  Yet  the 
book  was  bound  to  end  in  a  tempo  primOy  in  a  strain 
of  peace  and  hope  as  like  as  possible  to  what  was 
hushed  forever,  the  jocund  dance-measure  of  art  and 
friendship  and  Latin-Quarter  youth.  For  "  Trilby  ** 
is  comedy,  after  all,  genuine  comedy,  and  it  is  so  to 
be  named,  albeit  with  a  scandalous  lump  in  the 
throat.  As  it  is,  we  take  it ;  we  covet  it ;  we  will 
pay  any  price  for  it ;  we  cannot  get  along  without 
it.     "Je  prong!'* 

Mr.  Du  Maurier  is  not  the  first  artist  in  England 
who  has  come  over  the  border  into  literature  with 
victorious  results.  Opie  and  Fuseli  were  among  the 
most  suggestive  of  thinkers  and  talkers  ;   Sir  Joshua 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  113 

By  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 

lectured  with  academic  vigor  and  graceful  persuasive- 
ness ;    Haydon   had    an  almost    unequalled   eye   for 
character,  and  a  racy,  biting,  individual  manner  with 
his  pen.      But  no  artist  has  so  endowed  the  world  of 
romance.      Mr.  Du  Maurier's  achievement  is  not  of 
malice  prepense.      As  Dian  stole  to  Endymion  sleep- 
ing,  so  has  immortal  luck  come  upon   him,  chiefly 
because   he  did    not,   like    the    misguided   Imlac   in 
**Rasselas,"   "determine   to   become*' — a  classic. 
**  Trilby,"  born  of  leisure  and  pasdme,  is  vagrant  ; 
heedless  of  means  to  the  end  ;   profoundly  modest  and 
simple  ;    told  for  what  it  is  worth,  as  if  it  were,  at 
least,  something  real  and  dear  to  the  teller.      Out  of 
this  easy,   pleasure-giving  mood,   from  one  who    is 
no  trained   expert,  who   has   no  idea  to    broach   of 
disturbance    or    reform,    out    of    genial   genius,    in 
short,   which  hates  the  niggardly  hand  and  scatters 
roses,  comes  a  gift  of  unique  beauty.     It  crowns  the 
publishers'    year,    as    do    *'  Lord    Ormont   and    his 
Aminta,"  "  Perleycross,"  and  "The  Jungle  Book." 
With  these  great  works  of  great  writers,  it  stands, 
oddly  enough,  as  tall  as  any  ;   fresh,  wide,  healthful, 
curative,  like  them  ;  and  like  them,  a  terrible  punch 
on  the  head  to  a  hundred  little  puling  contemporane- 

8 


114  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

"Trilby" 

ous  novels,  with  their  crude  and  cowardly  theories 
of  life. 

The  "Trilby  "  pictures,  haphazard  and  effectual 
as  is  their  text,  can  bear  no  more  direct  praise  than 
that  they  are  verily  Mr.  Du  Maurier's.  The  mas- 
terly grouping,  the  multitude  of  fine  lines,  the  spirited 
perspective,  are  here  as  of  old.  Some  of  these  illus- 
trations, not  necessarily  the  best,  stay  on  the  retina ; 
among  such,  surely,  is  the  ludicrous,  dripping  funeral 
procession  of  the  landlady's  vernacular  lie  ;  that  huge 
procession  filing  up-street,  with  one  belated,  civic 
infant  on  the  reviewing-stand  !  Hardly  second  to  it 
as  a  spectacle  is  the  high-born  rogue  of  a  Zouave, 
enacting  the  trussed  fowl  at  midnight  on  the  studio 
floor,  or  the  companion  gem,  set  in  the  dubious  out- 
of-doors  of  the  great  original  Parisian  Carry-hatide. 
Of  the  serious  drawings,  there  is  a  memorable  one 
among  the  three  of  Trilby  singing,  with  her  deli- 
cately advanced  foot,  and  falling  hair,  and  the  lumin- 
ous Ellen-Terry-like  look  in  her  kind  eyes.  Above 
all,  who  can  forget  the  pathetic,  pleading  figure 
of  the  little  boy  Jeannot,  in  his  pretty  Palm  Sun- 
day clothes,  losing  his  holiday,  losing  faith  in  his 
sister ;  and  of  Trilby  over  him,  revoking  her  prom- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  115 

By  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 

ise,  and  compassing  what  was  in  very  truth  the 
**  meanest  and  lowest  deed"  of  her  brief,  unselfish 
life  ?  She  cried  herself  to  sleep  often,  remembering 
it,  but  to  Mrs.  Bagot  it  was  monstrous  trivial  :  **  the 
putting-off  of  a  small  child.'*  Her  too  typical 
phrase,  "  wrong  with  the  intense  wrongness  of  a 
right-minded  person,"  as  Ruskin  says,  gives  you  a 
pang.  So  does  the  inscription  under  the  last  glimpse 
we  have  of  Little  Billee,  poignant  enough  without  the 
"Quae  nunc  abibis  in  locay'*  which  rushes  its  sweet 
pagan  heart-break  into  the  Rector's  mind.  In  these 
casual  intolerable  thrusts  deep  into  the  nerve  of  laugh- 
ter or  of  tears,  Mr.  Du  Maurier  demonstrates  his 
right  of  authorship  ;  these,  and  not  vain  verbal  felici- 
ties, constitute  his  literary  style. 


Modern  Laodicea 

By 

Norman  Hapgood 


MODERN    LAODICEA 


T^  OR  centuries  the  word  Laodicean  was  a  reproach  ; 


r 


to-day  it  is  beginning  to  carry  with  it  a  sugges- 


tion of  nobility.      It  was  Saint  John  who,  in  making 
the  unknown  city  famous,  covered  it  with  obloquy  : 

"  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  of  the  Laodi- 
ceans  write  :   .   .    . 

**  *I  know  thy  works,  that  thou  art  neither  cold 
nor  hot :   I  would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot. 

**  'So,  then,  because  thou  art  lukewarm,  and  neither 
cold  nor  hot,  I  will  spew  thee  out  of  my  mouth.*  ** 

Among  the  moderns  who  have  suggested  that  to 
be  neither  hot  nor  cold  is  to  be  well,  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy  is  prominent,  as  he  gave  the  title  of  **A  Lao- 
dicean "  to  a  novel  of  which  the  heroine  is  attractive. 
She  is  a  girl  who  loves  both  the  old  and  the  new 
where  they  are  most  in  conflict.  She  liked  ruins 
and  she  liked  restorations.  She  had  half  a  mind  to 
marry  a  picturesque  noble,  De  Stancy,  with  no  brains, 
no  character,  and  an  atmosphere  of  old-world  romance, 
and  she  did  marry  a  hard-headed  modern.      At  the 

119 


I20  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


Modern  Laodicea 


end  of  the  book,  she  remarks  :  **  *  We  '11  build  a  new 
house  beside  the  ruin,  and  show  the  modern  spirit 
forevermore  .  .  .  but,  George,  I  wish  —  *  And 
Paula  repressed  a  sigh. 

«'*Well?' 

**  *  I  wish  my  castle  was  not  burned ;  and  I  wish 
you  were  a  De  Stancy.'  '* 

At  Harvard  University,  a  few  years  ago,  there 
was  started  a  society  intended  to  represent  the  true 
spirit  of  the  Neo-Laodiceans.  It  held  that  luke- 
warmness  was  the  most  admirable  condition  obtain- 
able by  man.  Moral  heat  or  cold  in  the  heart  of 
any  applicant  for  election  was  reason  for  his  rejection. 
"  Nothing  in  excess"  was  suggested  as  a  motto,  but 
the  word  "but"  was  thought  to  be  a  more  subtle 
suggestion  that  something  could  always  be  said  on 
either  side.  In  the  end  no  motto  was  chosen,  be- 
cause this  matter,  like  all  other  matters,  was  not 
pressed.  For  refreshments,  lukewarm  tea  and  sweet 
California  wine  were  served.  Conversation  was 
neither  encouraged  nor  discouraged.  Serious  argu- 
ment was  as  freely  tolerated  as  genuine  trifling.  A 
well-known  man  in  college,  who  thought  himself 
worthy  of  the  club,  was  rejected  because  he  was  be- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  121 

By  Norman  Hapgood 

lieved  to  be  hostile  to  seriousness.  Another  was 
kept  out  because,  although  he  said  nothing  against 
frivolity,  it  bored  him. 

The  society  had  no  secrets.  The  members  sought 
no  proselytes,  but  gave  full  answers  to  all  inquiries. 
The  Harvard  students  smiled  and  were  interested. 
The  young  women  at  the  Harvard  Annex  tried  to 
laugh,  but  thought  it  wasn't  right.  They  said  the 
young  men  were  posing.  The  most  magnanimous 
said  that  under  the  seemingly  erroneous  spirit  was  a 
really  ardent  search  for  truth.  The  Annex  held  but 
one  girl  who  was  ever  mentioned  for  membership, 
and  she  was  defeated  by  a  close  vote  on  the  ground 
that,  although  her  Laodiceanism  seemed  perfect,  as 
she  was  a  woman  it  was  axiomatic  that  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  her  would  reveal  some  ethical  preju- 
dice. 

The  founder  of  the  society,  naturally  enough,  was 
the  most  imperfect  member.  At  one  time  there 
was  serious  thought  of  accepting  his  resignation. 
Instead  of  being  lukewarm  he  was  alternately  hot  and 
cold,  being  one  of  the  ablest  moral  speakers  as  well 
as  one  of  the  most  inspired  jesters  at  morality.  He 
himself  did   not   know  whether   reverence   or  bias- 


122  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


Modern  Laodicea 


phemy  was  strongest  in  him.  It  was  the  perfection 
of  this  doubt  about  himself  which  induced  the  club 
to  forgive  his  unstable  equilibrium. 

**  Doing  is  a  deadly  thing;  doing  ends  in  death." 
One  member  was  expelled  because  he  quoted  with 
approval  this  Antinomian  hymn.  That  statement  is 
as  far  from  improved  Laodiceanism  as  is  the  fury  for 
doing  things.  Action  is  well  enough  if  it  be  within 
bounds,  as  is  rest.  The  Laodicean  must  see  the  ad- 
vantages of  all  opposites,  else  he  is  unworthy  of  his 
name. 

In  contrast  to  the  founder  was  the  elected  head  of 
the  society,  the  most  fiilly  developed  specimen,  a 
model  of  intellectual  and  temperamental  moderation. 
He  was  mild  in  study,  in  exercise,  in  personal  rela- 
tions. He  had  more  wisdom  than  most  men  and 
more  knowledge,  but  he  had  acquired  his  knowledge, 
not  by  effort,  but  by  putting  his  attention,  when  he 
chose  to  give  attention  to  the  acquisition  of  facts,  to 
those  of  permanent  importance.  He  had  never 
wasted  any  strength  on  hobbies ;  he  had  never  been 
enthusiastic.  Yet  he  had  always  been  interested. 
He  knew  nothing  that  was  not  worth  knowing. 
His  easy  intellectual  spirit  was  combined  with  aes- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  123 

By  Norman  Hapgood 

thetic  fineness  and  sensuous  delicacy.  He  spent 
much  of  his  time  in  the  sunshine,  amusing  himself 
with  the  passing  events  of  the  hour.  His  friends 
were  chosen  for  their  dispositions,  not  for  their  ac- 
quirements. He  preferred  a  small  mind,  simple  and 
harmonious,  to  a  large  one  distorted  or  turbulent. 
He  spent  a  few  hours  of  the  day  in  severe  study,  a 
few  in  strolling  in  the  air,  a  few  in  chatting  and 
drinking  tea,  a  few  in  reading  poetry  or  other  im- 
aginative literature.  He  was  fond  of  conversation, 
I  but  not  of  dispute.  He  was  loyal  to  reason  and 
cared  little  for  reasoning. 

Between  these  two  types  lay  the  other  five  mem- 
bers, Laodiceans  of  varying  degrees.  One  was 
looked  upon  as  of  doubtful  standing  on  account  of  his 
temperament,  which  seemed  to  belong  to  the  land  of 
Far  Niente,  with  which  we  had  no  desire  to  be 
allied.  He  was  lazy,  and  he  kept  his  membership 
only  because  of  his  intellectual  fairness.  His  organs 
were  partial  to  rest,  but  his  mind  was  judicial  and 
regretted  the  defect  of  his  temperament.  As  his 
approval  was  distributed  impartially  among  the  alert 
and  the  sleepy,  the  faithful  and  the  unbelieving,  we 
let  his  ideas  atone  for  his  instincts. 


124  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Modern  Laodicea 

The  others,  who  were  not  especially  distinct  types, 
were  good  average  examples  of  the  species.  In  ad- 
dition, we  had  seven  honorary  members.  There 
was  a  rule  that  no  man  in  his  lifetime  could  be  an 
honorary  member,  but  there  was  one  living  man  so 
deserving  of  the  honor  that  we  did  all  we  could 
within  the  letter  of  the  rule :  we  voted  that  Arthur 
James  Balfour  should  acquire  a  membership  immedi- 
ately upon  his  death.  He  was  the  only  man  who 
received  this  tribute.  Among  the  dead,  Omar 
Khayyam  was  elected,  with  one  dissent,  on  the 
ground  that  the  Persian  poet  was  injudiciously  op- 
posed to  virtue ;  and  Socrates,  Lucretius,  Horace, 
Goethe,  and  Moliere  passed  without  challenge. 
Over  Lucretia  Borgia,  who  was  proposed  by  the 
founder,  there  was  a  long  fight,  with  the  same  ob- 
jections that  had  been  made  against  him.  On  the 
plea  that  she  was  as  fond  of  virtue  as  of  vice  we  ad- 
mitted her,  though  with  regret. 

Since  the  second  gathering,  though  two  years  have 
passed,  the  club  has  not  met,  simply  because  no  one 
has  suggested  a  meeting.  This  is  thought  to  be  in 
keeping  with  its  principles.  I  have  gone  thus  fully 
into  its  history  because  it  is  the  only  organized  rep- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


1^5 


By  Norman  Hapgood 


resentation  of  the  principles  of  the  new  sect.  These 
principles,  though  not  yet  exactly  defined,  are 
shadowed  forth  in  the  belief  of  these  seven  youths. 
They  were  confident,  at  the  time,  that  the  true  Lao- 
dicea  would  grow  in  size  and  in  respect.  It  could 
never  number  many,  because  by  the  nature  of  its 
creed  it  was  an  intellectual  aristocracy  ;  but  it  would 
grow  slowly  larger  as  the  course  of  evolution  brought 
the  world  gradually  nearer  to  the  summit  of  develop- 
ment. Whether  most  of  us  persist  in  this  belief,  I 
do  not  know.  Nor  do  I  know  whether  most  of  us 
believe  still  that  in  a  world  where  almost  everybody 
is  vociferously  supporting  one  side  of  every  question 
it  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  sit  in  the  shade,  to  drink 
lukewarm  nourishment,  and  to  say  sweetly  that  there 
is  some  good  on  either  side.  There  may  be  a  better 
course  than  this  —  and  there  may  not. 


The  Intellectual  Parvenu 

By 

Norman  Hapgood 


THE   INTELLECTUAL   PARVENU 


A' 


a  time  when  so  many  new  ideas  about  the 
humanities  are  flooding  America  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  among  our  ambitious  and  intelligent 
young  men  of  the  first  generation  of  culture  are 
many  whose  intellectual  methods  show  more  eager- 
ness than  measure.  With  no  traditions  behind  them 
they  do  not  realize  how  necessary  are  humility,  re- 
pose, and  care  to  sound  ripening  of  the  perceptions 
and  the  judgment.  As  their  fathers  struggled  for 
academic  education  and  for  material  ease,  the  sons 
make  a  struggle  and  an  excitement  of  ideas  on  art. 
They  over-emphasize  what  they  get  hold  of,  from  a 
deficient  sense  of  permanent  values.  Though  this 
spectacle  has  been  seen  at  other  times,  probably 
never  before  was  so  large  a  mass  of  new  ideas  thrown 
to  so  hungry  a  public. 

The  men  of  whom  I  speak  are  more  occupied 
with  the  idea  of  enlightenment  than  with  the  things 
which  give  light.  Americans  give  too  much  impor- 
tance to  intellectual  things,  it  is  frequently  said. 
9  129 


130  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Intellectual  Parvenu 

Riper  intelligence  puts  less  emphasis  on  itself.  When 
we  first  see  beyond  others  about  us  we  are  dazzled 
by  the  idea  of  our  own  advancement.  Because  we 
have  discarded  some  errors  or  removed  some  igno- 
rance we  rejoice  in  our  grasp  of  truth.  This  often 
makes  us  set  ourselves  up  as  enemies  of  the  Philistines 
and  of  all  their  ways.  Seeing  the  futility  of  their 
labor  we  assume  opinions  on  subjects  over  which  we 
have  not  labored.  Seeing  the  uselessness  of  much 
acquired  fact  we  are  content  with  superficial  know- 
ledge. We  smile  in  satisfacdon  over  the  radicalness 
of  our  point  of  view,  and  because  we  know  the  dead- 
ness  of  some  conventions  we  think  that  a  thing  is 
true  because  it  is  new.  The  established  is  common- 
place. What  is  known  to  all  or  felt  by  all  is 
unimportant.  Distinction  consists  in  seeing  and 
believing  novel  things. 

**  I.  the  heir  of  all  the  ages 
In  the  foremost  files  of  time.'' 

Most  often  these  victims  of  their  own  progress  are 
our  college  men.  Indeed  in  a  confused  way  the 
mass  of  our  half-educated  people  who  distrust  the 
influences  of  our  colleges  have  such  products  in  their 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


13 


By  Norman  Hapgood 


minds.  Of  course,  however,  the  fault  is  not  with 
our  institutions,  but  with  a  hasty  civilization.  In  an 
American  college  to-day  altogether  too  much  interest 
is  taken  in  shallow  modernity,  but  our  colleges,  on 
the  whole,  send  their  students  away  with  less  of  the 
bigotry  of  new  knowledge  than  they  had  on  entrance. 
Steadily  assertion  of  intellectual  heterodoxy,  contempt 
for  the  conventional,  is  becoming  less  a  source  of 
general  interest  in  our  educational  institution ;  steadily 
it  is  coming  to  be  seen  as  a  crudity.  So  many 
youths  have  flaunted  end-of-the-century  banners  that 
the  device  is  already  almost  worthless,  and  it  is  not 
so  much  the  graduate  of  to-morrow  as  the  graduate 
of  ten  years  ago,  who  is  the  centre  of  the  admiring 
little  circle  which  pins  its  faith  in  an  enlightened  life 
on  some  arbitrary  and  confident  preacher  of  new 
things.  The  gospel  of  the  prophet  may  be  Japanese 
art ;  it  may  be  the  necessity  of  living  in  Europe ;  or 
it  may  be  the  futility  of  thinking  anything  is  better 
than  anything  else.  This  American  phenomenon 
is  found  in  abundance  in  all  of  our  cities,  but  if  he 
can  get  away  he  lives  in  an  European  art  centre,  an 
essential  part  of  no  life  except  that  of  his  apostles. 
That  these  persons  may  be  regarded  as  a  class  is 


132  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Intellectual  Parvenu 

proved  by  their  surprising  agreement  of  opinion. 
For  instance,  of  the  young  art  prophets  whom  I  know, 
all  Americans,  some  living  in  Europe,  some  by  neces- 
sity in  America,  every  one  thinks  that  the  others 
are  so  shallow  that  what  influence  they  have  is  sur- 
prising ;  each  thinks  that  the  only  art  of  to-day  is 
French  or  Japanese  ;  that  there  has  never  been  any 
art  in  England  ;  that  the  most  advanced  literature  of 
the  world  is  the  realism  of  the  younger  men  in  Paris  ; 
that  Oscar  Wilde  is  the  most  intelligent  of  British 
writers  ;  that  the  admiration  of  Shakespeare  is  a 
superstition  ;  that  there  is  much  less  beauty  in  nature 
than  in  art ;  that  work  in  any  unartistic  employment 
is  a  waste  of  life  ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  for  an 
intelligent  man  to  be  contented  in  America.  When 
so  many  radical  ideas  are  held  in  common  there  must 
be  some  way  of  generalizing  about  the  individuals 
holding  them.  They  are  alike,  also,  not  only  in 
their  opinions,  but  in  their  fields  of  ignorance.  They 
are  fond  of  talking  about  atavism,  for  instance,  and 
cannot  state  exactly  any  one  of  the  conflicting  the- 
ories of  heredity.  They  ostensibly  treat  art  scientifi- 
cally, psychologically,  and  do  not  know  the  simplest 
facts  of  experimental  physiological  psychology.     They 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


33 


By  Norman  Hapgood 


generalize  about  movements  and  periods  after  reading 
a  few  books  about  each.  The  saying  that  the  French 
would  be  the  best  cooks  in  Europe  if  they  had  any 
butcher's  meat,  modified  by  Mr.  Bagehot  into  the 
aphorism  that  they  would  be  the  best  writers  of  the 
day  if  they  had  anything  to  say,  applies  also  to  these 
critics  who  make  such  striking  theories  out  of  so  little. 
They  accuse  of  ignorance  all  who  lack  knowledge 
in  their  fields ;  all  knowledge  outside  of  their  field 
they  look  upon  as  pedantry. 

Salient,  however,  as  are  the  weaknesses  of  these 
unformed  prophets  they  do  have  their  attractive  side. 
They  have  enthusiasm  about  things  of  the  mind, 
they  have  indignation  for  what  they  deem  Philistin- 
ism, and  with  their  love  of  prominence  in  the  world 
of  ideas  is  mixed  some  genuine  respect  for  truth. 
Are  our  American  workers  in  the  world  of  ideas  to 
be  permanently  open  to  the  charge  of  over-emphasis, 
of  lacking  distinction,  finish,  wholeness  ?  Most  of 
us  believe  not.  We  believe  that  the  prominence  of 
cleverness,  rather  than  of  soundness,  just  now  is  a 
temporary  thing,  like  our  social  crudities,  from  which 
later  the  powers  of  a  race  will  free  themselves. 

In  the  meantime,  we  have  in  an  impressive  form 


134  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Intellectual  Parvenu 

the  first  crop  of  the  literature  of  the  future.  Journals 
are  founded  all  over  the  country  w^hich,  in  an  average 
life  of  a  few  months,  express  the  opinions  and  reveal 
the  art  of  a  few  young  men  who  think  they  are 
ahead  of  their  times.  Just  now  the  main  character- 
istic of  this  literature  is  that  it  suggests  as  often  as  it 
can  the  art  of  painting.  It  calls  itself  by  the  name 
of  a  color  —  yellow,  green,  purple,  gray.  Constant 
use  is  made  of  the  slang  of  art.  Indeed  their  only 
way  of  appearing  artistic  seems  to  be  to  make  their 
writing  as  far  as  possible  remind  the  reader  of  the 
plastic  arts.  Art  is  ostentatiously  opposed  to  every- 
thing else,  especially  to  scholarship,  morality,  and 
industry.  The  idea  seems  to  be  that  art  is  made  by 
talking  about  art,  or  by  talking  about  life  in  terms  of 
art.  Equally  noticeable  is  the  instinct  that  in  mak- 
ing one  special  quality  conspicuous  by  neglecting 
others,  they  are  showing  originality.  They  do  not 
see  that  in  an  artist  great  enough  to  give  a  large  man 
the  feeling  of  life  there  are  too  many  elements  for 
any  detail  to  be  conspicuous.  The  work  of  this 
artist  will  be  life-like ;  commonplace,  unless  seen  by 
an  eye  to  which  common  life  reveals  its  interests. 
Edmond  de   Goncourt   can  see  nothing  in    "  The 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


35 


By  Norman  Hapgood 


Scandinavian  Hamlet.'*  He  prefers  Pere  Goriot, 
who  is  newer,  he  thinks,  and  more  real.  Edmond 
de  Goncourt  is  an  admirable  example  of  the  attitude 
of  a  few  men  in  Paris  who  have  largely  influenced 
some  of  our  tawdry  literature.  In  one  of  his  jour- 
nals he  remarks  sadly  that  in  a  certain  conversation 
about  abstract  things,  general  human  points  of  view, 
he  failec.  to  shine,  and  he  asks  plaintively  why  it  is 
that  mei  who  "on  all  other  subjects  ''  find  original 
things  to  say  are  in  these  generalities  on  a  footing 
with  the  rest  of  the  world,  —  which  means  to  him, 
flat.  Reiders  of  the  eight  volumes  of  the  journal 
may  smilt  at  the  "all  other  subjects,*'  but  it  is  at 
least  true  that  on  certain  narrow  topics  of  which  few 
persons  know  anything  he  could  feel  more  profound 
than  he  ould  on  subjects  of  universal  human  interest. 
His  test  cf  Shakespeare,  by  the  way,  is  an  apt  one.  It 
does  not  condemn  a  man  that  he  does  not  find  Ham- 
let interesting.  Many  intelligent  men  do  not.  Any 
man  however,  who  infers,  from  his  lack  of  apprecia- 
tior,  that  Shakespeare  is  not  a  great  artist  is  deficient 
in  critical  intelligence  and  in  understanding  of  the 
vaue  of  evidence.  And  when  a  man  remarks  that 
Riphael,  Beethoven,  or  Shakespeare,  was  a  great  man 


136  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Intellectual  Parvenu 

in  his  time,  but  that  the  world  has  progressed,  and 
that,  as  we  stand  on  the  shoulders  of  our  predeces- 
sors, the  Balzac  of  this  century  sees  more  than  the 
Shakespeare  of  two  centuries  earlier,  we  have  a  aibject 
for  comedy.  Artists,  except  the  very  highest,  are 
likely  to  be  as  critics  arbitrary  and  intolerant,  though 
often  acute  and  original,  and  these  hangers-or  of  the 
art-world  have  the  arbitrariness  without  the  compen- 
sating exact  knowledge. 

That  any  critic  who  seriously  treats  vwth  con- 
tempt any  man  or  any  institution  that  has  a  high 
place  in  the  general  world  of  ideas  is  shdlow,  an 
avoider  and  not  a  solver  of  questions  which  confront 
a  man  of  mature  culture  and  broad  mind,  is  almost 
axiomatic.  When  we  hear  so  many  critics  to-day 
expressing  scorn  of  whole  nations,  saying  of  England, 
perhaps,  that  she  has  no  art,  of  Germany,  that  she 
has  only  dull  learning,  of  America  that  she  is  Philis- 
tine ;  when  we  see  these  critics  surrounded  by 
groups  of  followers,  do  we  not  wish,  with  s(ime 
reason,  that  we  had  a  Moliere  to-day  ?  Whai  a 
play  he  could  make  of  '*  Les  Critiques  Ridicules;** 
or  of  **L'Ecole  des  Aesthetes,'*  or  of  "  L*Ameii- 
cain  Malgre  Lui.'*      The  poems  of  Mr.  Gilbert  anl 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


137 


By  Norman  Hapgood 


of  Punch  are  pleasing  within  their  range,  but  the 
subject  deserves  to  be  treated  in  one  of  the  world's 
comedies.  The  scientific  art  criticism  of  men  who 
know  of  art  and  science  nothing  except  the  jargon 
makes  one  sometimes  doubt  the  value  of  the  general 
spread  of  ideas.  Lombroso,  Nordau,  even  parts  of 
Spencer,  not  to  speak  of  the  mass  of  inferior  generaliz- 
ing of  wide  scope,  would  have  brought  a  sad  smile 
to  the  face  of  the  real  scientist  who  spent  seven 
years  studying  earth-worms   alone. 


The  School  of  Jingoes 

By 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 


THE   SCHOOL   OF  JINGOES 


IN  a  certain  colored  regiment  there  was  a  chaplain 
who  was  habitually  called  by  the  negroes,  with 
their  usual  gift  at  lucky  misnomers,  **  Mr.  Chap- 
man." He  was  very  fond  of  risky  adventures,  and 
one  of  the  negroes  once  said:  "  WofFor  Mas'  Chap- 
man made  preacher  fo*?  He's  de  fightin'est  mos* 
Yankee  I  ebber  see  in  all  my  days!  "  It  is  impos- 
sible not  to  read  this  in  reading  what  is  written  by 
these  friends  of  peace,  who  are  constantly  using  the 
olive  branch  for  a  war  club  and  hammering  away  at 
those  who  think  differently.  The  excellent  Mr. 
Angell,  in  the  last  number  of  "  Our  Dark  Friends," 
announces  in  one  column  that  the  object  of  his 
paper  is  "  the  humane  education  of  the  millions," 
and  in  another  column  that  it  is  to  be  wished  "  that 
England  had  not  only  Venezuela,  but  every  other 
Spanish-speaking  colony  on  the  face  of  the  earth." 
In  this  manner,  more  prosaically,  do  Mr.  Edward 
Atkinson  and  Mr.  Edward  D.  Mead  hold  it  up  as 
the  highest   desideratum  for   every  part   of  Spanish 

141 


142^  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


The  School  of  Jingoes 


and  Portuguese  America  to  pass  into  English  hands. 
Grant  the  force  of  all  their  arguments,  can  this  be 
regarded  as  the  gospel  of  serenity  and  brotherly  love? 
It  rather  recalls  Heine's  glowing  description  of  one 
of  his  early  teachers,  one  Schramm,  who  had  written 
a  book  on  Universal  Peace,  and  in  whose  classes  the 
boys  pommelled  each  other  with  especial  vigor. 

If  jingoism  there  be  on  earth,  where  are  its  head- 
quarters, its  normal  school,  its  university  extension  sys- 
tem ?  Where,  pray,  but  in  the  example  of  England  ? 
No  one  who  has  watched  the  course  of  things  at 
Washington  can  help  seeing  the  influence  of  that  vast 
object-lesson.  Seeley's  book,  *<  The  Expansion  of 
England,'*  is  of  itself  enough  to  demoralize  a  whole 
generation  of  Congressmen.  It  is  the  trophies  of 
Great  Britain  which  will  not  allow  Lodge  and  Roose- 
velt to  sleep.  Logically,  they  have  the  right  of  it.  If 
it  be  a  great  and  beneficent  thing  for  England  to  annex, 
by  hook  or  crook,  every  desirable  harbor  or  island  on 
the  globe  ;  to  secure  Gibraltar  by  a  trick,  India  by  a 
lucky  disobedience  of  orders,  Egypt  by  a  temporary 
occupation  of  which  the  other  end  never  arrives,  — 
why  not  follow  the  example  ?  This  impulse  lay 
behind  the  whole  Hawaiian   negotiation ;    it  asserts 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


143 


By  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 


itself  in  all  the  Venezuela  interference,  in  all  the 
Cuban  imbroglio.  Moreover,  it  is  absolutely  con- 
sistent and  defensible,  if  England  is,  as  we  are  con- 
stantly assured,  the  great,  beneficent,  and  civilizing 
power  on  the  earth.  If  so,  let  us  also  be  beneficent ; 
let  us  proceed  to  civilize  ;  let  us,  too,  say,  especially 
to  all  Spanish- speaking  peoples,  **Sois  mon  frere, 
ou  je  te  tue!  " 

If  there  ever  was  a  Church  Militant,  surely  England 
is  the  Nation  Militant.  While  we  debate  a  gunboat, 
she  equips  a  fleet ;  while  we  introduce  a  bill  for  an 
earth-work,  and  refer  it  to  a  committee,  she  forwards 
ten  additional  guns  to  Puget  Sound.  *'  Her  march 
is  o'er  the  mountain  wave,"  as  Campbell  long  since 
boasted  ;  and  yet,  whenever  the  youngest  statesman 
asks  why  we  should  not  be  allowed  to  take  a  falter- 
ing step  after  her,  he  is  treated  as  if  he  had  violated 
the  traditions  of  the  human  race  and  had  indeed 
brought  death  into  the  world  and  all  our  woe.  Let 
us  at  heart  be  consistent.  To  me,  I  confess,  the  old 
tradition  of  *'  an  unarmed  nation  "  —  about  which 
that  good  soldier.  Gen.  F.  A.  Walker,  once  made 
so  fine  an  address  —  still  seems  the  better  thing. 
But    the    unarmed    nation    is   the    condemnation   of 


144  CHAP-BOOK    EvSSAYS 

The  School  of  Jingoes 

England  ;  if  defencelessness  is  right,  then  England  is 
all  wrong,  and  we  should  say  so.  We  can  by  no 
possible  combination  be  English  and  pacific  at  the 
same  time. 

Above  all,  it  seems  to  me  an  absolute  abandon- 
ment of  the  whole  principle  of  republican  institutions 
to  say  that  they  are  for  one  nation  alone,  and  for 
only  those  who  speak  one  language.  If  deserving 
means  anything,  it  means  that  sooner  or  later  all  will 
grow  up  to  it.  Nobody  doubts  that  the  Romans 
governed  well  and  were  the  best  road-builders  on 
this  planet ;  but  all  now  admit  that  it  helped  human 
progress  when  they  took  themselves  out  of  England 
and  left  those  warring  tribes  to  work  themselves  out 
of  their  dark  condition  into  such  self-government  as 
they  now  possess.  There  was  a  time  on  this  conti- 
nent when  Mexico  was  such  a  scene  of  chaos  that 
the  very  word  *'  to  Mexicanize  **  carried  a  meaning 
of  disorder.  Yet  what  State  of  the  Union  has 
shown  more  definite  and  encouraging  progress  than 
has  been  accomplished  in  Mexico  within  the  last  ten 
years  ?  What  Mexico  is,  every  Spanish-American 
or  Portuguese- American  state  may  yet  be,  only  give  it 
time  and  a  fair  chance.     If  we  believe  that  the  prin- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


45 


By  Thomas  Wentworth   Higginson 

ciple  of  self-government  is  unavailable  for  those  who 
speak  Spanish,  we  might  as  well  have  allowed  Maxi- 
milian to  set  up  his  little  empire  undisturbed.  No 
one  ever  doubted  that  Louis  Napoleon  knew  how  to 
build  good  roads  and  to  shoot  straight  ;  and  perhaps 
he  might  have  taught  the  same  arts  to  his  represen- 
tative. Whatever  injury  we  may  before  have  done 
to  Mexico,  we  repaid  it  liberally  when  we  said  to 
Europe,  **  Hands  off,"  and  secured  to  that  Spanish- 
American  state  its  splendid  career  of  self-develop- 
ment out  of  chaos.  What  Mexico  has  done  the 
states  of  South  America  may  yet  imitate. 


lO 


The  Uses  of  Perversity 

By 

Laurence  Jerrold 


THE    USES   OF   PERVERSITY. 

T  T  ERE  French  must  lend  its  subtler  and  more 
•■•  *-  penetrating  aroma.  A  stronger  spice  must 
brace  the  good  old  English  toned-down  flavor. 
The  word  must  be  supposed  invigorated,  for  the 
thing  it  is  to  mean  is  forcible.  Waywardness  is  not 
the  humor  of  this  perversity,  and  it  has  more  of  the 
perverted  than  of  the  perverse.  Surface  hits  at  cus- 
sedness,  facile  thrusts  at  contrariness,  leave  it  un- 
scathed ;  for  it  goes  deeper  than  whimsicality  and 
underlies  the  quaintness  sharp  wit  picks  out  of  little 
things  gone  wrong.  Perversity,  thus  for  a  space  re- 
stored to  its  unemasculated  meaning,  is  a  twisted  dis- 
tortion of  root  and  branch,  not  a  gentle  deflection  of 
airy  twigs.  To  paint  a  French  thing  the  word  must 
assume  a  Gallic  hue,  and  as  the  thing  is  deep-dyed, 
so  the  word  must  borrow  for  the  nonce  a  fuller  tone. 
Words,  indeed,  are  but  things.  The  names  on 
which  French  thought  has  thrived  have  been  true 
tokens  of  its  moods,  and  word-changes  have  meant 
revolutions  of  fact,  for  the  facts  here  are  the  words. 

149 


I50  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Uses  of  Perversity- 
Realism   worsting   Romanticism,   the  newest   Deca- 
dence   undoing    Realism,   are    evolutions    in    speech 
which  cover  a  progression  in  life.     The  sentimental- 
ity of  Art  meant  gush  in  practice  and  the  attitudes  of 
literature  were  struck  in  reality.     Dissection  in  fiction 
argued  an  actual  habit  of  analysis,   and  materiality 
was  most  lived  for  when  it  was  most  written  about. 
The  reaction  in  words  has  ushered  in  a  revolution  of 
fact,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same,  the  new  literature 
has  sprung  from  the  new  life.      From  paroxysm  to 
anti-climax  has  been  the  way  of  this  parallel  progres- 
sion, as  it  is  of  every  change.      The  pendulum  has 
swayed  from  Realism  and  struck  the  opposite  beam. 
But  the  earth  turned  while  we  swung,  and  we  have 
landed,   not  on   Romance   again,   whence    we    had 
leaped  to  Realism,  but  on  Perversity,  whence  a  lucky 
spring   may   eventually   set  us   down  on   something 
wiser  and  better.      Yet  there  are  books  in  the  running 
brooks,  and  there  may  be  sermons  in  even  the  troubled 
streams  that  water  this  new  land  of  our  discovery. 
The  inner  reaction   in  men  and  things   which   the 
outer  anti-climax  of  names  and  words  betokens  is  no 
barren  waste,  and  yields  experience  a  plentiful  har- 
vest.     The    fruits  are  not    seldom    ill-flavored,   but 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


By  Laurence  Jerrold 


the  flavor  is  strong,  and  the  uses  of  this  new  per- 
versity are  not  insipid,  though  they  be  but  bitter- 
sweet. 

Idealism  is  our  perversion,  and  the  Soul  depraves 
us.  We  are  drinking  the  dregs  of  the  immaterial 
and  have  touched  the  dingiest  bottoms  of  purity. 
The  relativity  of  the  object  has  turned  our  heads,  and 
we  are  soul-mad.  Apotheosis  of  soul  and  annihila- 
tion of  body,  the  only  seemly  pegs  on  which  well- 
thinking  *'jeunes"  can  now  hang  their  periods, 
which  once  the  bait-hook  of  "  analytical  observa- 
tion *'  alone  could  catch,  are  the  principles  of  our 
disintegration.  Their  work  is  swift,  for  the  fear  of 
lagging  in  the  race  for  modernity  speeds  it,  and  it  is 
wholesale.  Nature  and  commQn-sense  crumble, 
and  sincerity  has  long  since  withered  away.  Caba- 
ret conversations  are  of  the  stupidity  of  sex,  and 
small-talk  in  drawing-rooms  runs  on  the  idiocy  of 
love.  Mating  is  a  platitude,  begetting  an  absurdity, 
and  motherhood  has  the  quaintness  of  things  obsolete. 
The  abolition  of  sex  is  the  new  crusade,  and  the  last 
religion  is  of  the  future,  when  the  aristocracy  of  the 
intellect  shall,  Jupiter-like,  eschew  animality,  and 
engender  its  children  in  a  thought.      Literature  fore- 


I5Z  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Uses  of  Perversity- 
tells  the  time,   and  art  paints  the  soul  with  daring 
straightforwardness    on    canvas,    using    microscopic 
brushes  dipped  in  gold  and  devoting  years   to   the 
task,  for  psychic  delineation  is  minute  and  precious. 

Soul  gives  form,  and  the  ethereal  must  take  out- 
ward shape.  Hence  the  new  attitude.  A  virginal 
appearance  and  the  candor  of  an  **  enfant  de  chceur  " 
are  its  necessary  conditions.  The  hair,  dark  for 
women,  preferably  golden  for  men,  is  long,  forlorn, 
and  parted.  Complexions  are  of  wax  when  femi- 
nine ;  when  masculine,  of  pale  peach-blossom !  A 
cherub's  smile  plays  on  the  lips,  and  eyes  must, 
within  the  bounds  of  feasibility,  show  the  vacuity  of 
an  infant's.  In  voice  and  gesture,  being  more  easily 
practised,  is  the  new  puerility  most  felicitously  ex- 
pressed. The  secret  lies  in  the  suppression  of  both. 
The  voice  must  be  <*  white,"  and  every  accent, 
every  shade  of  tone  that  gives  but  the  faint  image  of 
a  color,  is  a  flaw.  A  still  grosser  imperfection 
would  be  aught  of  hasty  or  unmeasured  in  gesture  or 
movement.  In  small-talk  anent  the  Soul,  as  in  the 
impressive  elocution  of  nursery  rhymes,  carnal  ob- 
livion must  be  insured  by  immovableness  of  limb, 
and  further  than  the  uplifting  of  a  finger  the  soulful 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  153 

By  Laurence  Jerrold 

do  not  venture.  The  golden-haired  youth,  lisping 
with  the  "voix  blanche"  of  white-robed  ** premi- 
eres communiantes,"  pictures  the  perversion  of 
purity. 

As  at  once  a  sign  of  health  and  a  stigma  of  decay 
there  comes  amid  this  struggling  for  a  Soul  the  fitful 
yet  eventual  triumph  of  the  flesh.  The  trampled 
body  turns  and  fells  its  oppressors,  and  this  is  Nature's 
victory,  claiming,  after  all,  her  own.  But  it  is  also 
Nature's  revenge,  for  she  bestows  not  of  her  best  on 
those  who  have  spurned  the  boon,  and  her  gifts  are 
cruel  to  her  prodigal  sons.  Passion  is  vouchsafed 
generously  anew  to  some  few  who  abjured  it,  but  it 
has  to  pay  its  penalty.  The  actress  who  (not  for 
respectability's  sake  —  this  care  is  unknown  in  her 
Bohemia — but  as  a  tribute  to  the  new  perversion) 
had  renounced  the  flesh,  and  the  poet  who  had  made 
dying  all  the  rage  and  relegated  mere  living  to  the 
lumber-room,  have  to  screen  the  simplest  of  idyls, 
not  from  the  stare  of  the  Puritan,  but  from  the  pry- 
ing of  the  last  decadence.  More  often  a  yet  heavier 
penalty  is  paid.  The  flesh  will  out,  and,  stifled  by 
the  perversion  of  purity,  breaks  impurely  forth. 
The  fat  little   Marseillais  poet  who  may  be  heard  of 


154  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Uses  of  Perversity 

an  evening  in  his  popular  part  of  the  prophet  of  the 
new  renunciation  anathematizing  the  scurrility  of  sex 
and  execrating  the  ugliness  of  love,  the  golden-haired 
painter  w^hose  boast  is  his  choir-boy  appearance,  are 
rivals  in  innuendo  and  salaciousness  when  the  work 
of  life  is  over  and  play-hours  begin.  In  the  day- 
time even  the  test  of  a  bottle  of  champagne  or  of  but 
a  half  pint  of  beer  is  one  the  new  purity  will  hardly 
stand.  The  slender  youth  whom  you  have  heard 
preaching  the  gospel  of  asceticism  amid  a  circle  of 
amused  and  half-deceived  ladies  goes  with  you  to  sip 
a  **  quart"  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Place  Blanche,  up- 
stairs, and  shows  surprising  intimacy  with  the  femi- 
nine element  of  that  particular  world,  and  no  little 
experience  of  fleshly  doctrines. 

The  uses  of  perversity  wander  wide  in  seriousness 
and  in  theory,  and  return  to  Nature  in  practice  and 
at  play.  But  the  return  is  by  a  yet  muddier  way 
than  the  digression,  and  a  cleaner  and  wholesomer 
path  must  be  opened  up  before  the  straight  line  can 
be  struck  again. 


A  Comment  on  Some 

Recent  Books 
By 
Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 


A   COMMENT   ON   SOME   RECENT 

BOOKS 

OITTING  in  slippered  ease  before  the  fire,  in 
^  that  ripe  hour  when  the  violence  of  flame  has 
given  place  to  a  calm  and  penetrating  glow,  one 
hears  the  wind  without  as  if  it  were  a  tumult  in 
some  other  world.  The  great  waves  of  sound  follow 
each  other  in  swift  succession,  but  they  break  and 
wreck  themselves  on  a  shore  so  remote  that  one 
meditates  unconcerned  in  the  warmth  of  the  wide- 
throated  chimney.  The  sense  of  repose  and  ease 
within  is  too  deep  to  be  disturbed  by  the  roar  that 
fills  the  wintry  night  without.  And  yet  how  fragile 
are  the  walls  that  guard  our  glowing  comfort  from 
the  storm  of  the  vast  world,  and  how  small  a  space 
of  light  and  heat  is  ours  in  the  great  sweep  of  ele- 
mental forces  ! 

The  policing  of  the  world  and  the  suppression  of 
the  cut-throat  and  the  savage  secure,  at  times,  an 
order  so  pervasive  and  so  stable  that  we  forgot  the 
possibilities    of  revolt    and    tragedy    which  underlie 

157 


158  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

A  Comment  on  Some  Recent  Books 

human  society  in  its  most  serene  as  in  its  most 
agitated  moments.  The  elemental  forces  which 
plant  the  seeds  of  tragedy  in  every  human  life,  play 
as  freely  and  powerfully  through  society  to-day  as  in 
those  turbulent  periods  when  strong  natures  made 
laws  for  themselves  and  gave  full  vent  to  individual 
impulse.  As  a  rule,  these  forces  expend  themselves 
in  well-defined  and  orderly  channels ;  but  they 
have  lost  nothing  of  their  old  destructiveness  if  for 
any  reason  they  leave  these  channels  or  overflow 
their  narrow  courses.  Conventions  are  more  rigidly 
enforced  and  more  widely  accepted  to-day  than  ever 
before  ;  but  the  tide  of  life  is  as  deep  and  full  and 
swift  as  of  old,  and  when  its  current  is  set  it  sweeps 
conventions  before  it  as  fragile  piers  are  torn  up  and 
washed  out  by  furious  seas. 

In  our  slippered  ease,  protected  by  orderly  govern- 
ment, by  written  constitutions,  by  a  police  who  are 
always  in  evidence,  we  sometimes  forget  of  what 
perilous  stuff  we  are  made,  and  how  inseparable  from 
human  life  are  those  elements  of  tragedy  which  from 
time  to  time  startle  us  in  our  repose,  and  make  us 
aware  that  the  most  awful  pages  of  history  may  be 
rewritten  in  the  record  of  our  own  day.     It  will  be 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  159 

By  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 

a  dull  day  if  the  time  ever  comes  when  uncertainty 
and  peril  are  banished  from  the  life  of  men.  When 
the  seas  are  no  longer  tossed  by  storms,  the  joy  and 
the  training  of  eye,  hand,  and  heart  in  seamanship 
will  go  out.  The  antique  virtues  of  courage,  endur- 
ance, and  high-hearted  sacrifice  cannot  perish  without 
the  loss  of  that  which  makes  it  worth  while  to  live  ; 
but  these  qualities,  which  give  heroic  fibre  to  charac- 
ter, cannot  be  developed  if  danger  and  uncertainty 
are  to  be  banished  from  human  experience.  A 
stable  world  is  essential  to  progress,  but  a  world 
without  the  element  of  peril  would  comfort  the  body 
and  destroy  the  soul.  In  some  form  the  temper  of 
the  adventurer,  the  explorer,  the  sailor,  and  the 
soldier  must  be  preserved  in  an  orderly  and  peaceful 
society ;  that  sluggish  stability  for  which  business  inter- 
ests are  always  praying  would  make  money  abundant, 
but  impoverish  the  money-getters.  There  would  be 
nothing  worth  buying  in  a  community  in  which  men 
were  no  longer  tempted  and  life  had  no  longer  that 
interest  which  grows  out  of  its  dramatic  possibilities. 
That  order  ought  to  grow,  and  will  grow,  is  the 
conviction  of  all  who  believe  in  progress  ;  but  society 
will  be  preserved  from  stagnation  by  the  fact   that 


i6o  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

A  Comment  on  Some  Recent  Books 

every  man  who  comes  into  the  world  brings  with 
him  all  the  possibilities  which  the  first  man  brought. 
For  men  are  born,  not  made,  in  spite  of  all  our 
superior  mechanism;  and  although  a  man  is  born 
to-day  into  conditions  more  favorable  to  acceptance 
and  growth  than  to  rejection  and  revolt,  he  must 
still  solve  his  personal  problem  as  in  the  stormier 
ages,  and  make  his  own  adjustment  to  his  time. 
And  in  the  making  of  that  adjustment  lie  all  the 
elements  of  the  human  tragedy.  The  policing  of 
the  world  will  grow  more  complete  from  age  to  age, 
but  every  man  born  into  this  established  order  will 
bring  with  him  the  perilous  stuff  of  revolt  and 
revolution.  Without  this  background  of  tragic  possi- 
bility life  would  lose  that  perpetual  spell  which  it 
casts  upon  the  artistic  spirit  in  every  generation ;  it 
would  cease  to  be  the  drama  to  which  a  thousand  pens 
have  striven  to  give  form,  before  which  a  thousand 
thousand  spectators  have  sat  in  a  silence  more  affect- 
ing than  the  most  rapturous  tumult  of  applause. 

In  these  "piping  times  of  peace"  perhaps  the 
artist  renders  no  greater  service  to  his  kind  than  by 
keeping  the  tragic  background  of  life  in  clear  view. 
Men  sorely  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  immeasurable 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  i6i 

By  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 

space  which  surrounds  them  and  the  bottomless  gulfs 
which  open  beneath  them.  In  this  trafficking  age, 
when  so  many  slowly  or  swiftly  coin  strength,  time, 
and  joy  into  money,  the  constant  vision  of  the 
human  drama,  with  its  deep  and  fruitful  suggestive- 
ness,  is  a  necessity,  and  it  can  hardly  be  a  matter  of 
coincidence  that  the  tragic  side  of  the  drama  has  so 
strongly  appealed  to  men  of  artistic  temper  in  recent 
years.  Whatever  may  be  said  about  the  sanity  of 
view  and  of  art  of  Flaubert,  Zola,  and  De  Maupas- 
sant ;  of  Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck  ;  of  George  Moore, 
William  Sharp,  and  the  group  of  younger  writers  who, 
with  varying  degrees  of  success,  are  breaking  from 
the  beaten  paths,  it  is  certain  that  they  have  laid 
bare  the  primitive  elements  in  the  human  problem. 
The  dramas  of  Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck  have  brought 
not  peace  but  a  sword  into  recent  discussion  of  the 
province  and  nature  of  art  ;  but  whatever  may  be 
our  judgment  of  the  truth  and  quality  of  these  end- 
of-the-century  readings  and  renderings  of  the  great 
drama,  there  is  no  question  about  their  departure  from 
the  conventional  point  of  view.  They  may  be 
partial,  even  misleading,  in  the  interpretation  of  life 
and  its  meaning  which  they  suggest,  but  they  disturb 

II 


i62  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

A  Comment  on  Some  Recent  Books 

and  agitate  us ;  they  make  us  realize  how  fragile  are 
the  structures  which  so  many  men  and  women 
build  over  the  abysses.  If  they  do  nothing  more 
than  irritate  us,  they  render  us  a  service  ;  for  irri- 
tation is  better  than  the  repose  of  unconsciousness ; 
it  brings  us  back  to  the  sense  of  life ;  it  makes  us 
aware  of  the  deeper  realities. 

Mr.  Sharp's  "Vistas"  seems  at  first  reading  a 
book  out  of  another  century,  so  dominant  is  its 
tragic  note,  so  remote  its  themes,  so  elemental  its 
consciousness.  It  is  a  book  of  glimpses  only  ;  but 
these  glimpses  open  up  the  recesses  and  obscurities 
where  destiny  is  swiftly  or  slowly  shaped.  Law- 
making and  the  police  seem  very  superficial  assur- 
ances and  guardians  of  order  in  a  world  in  which, 
beyond  their  ken  or  reach,  such  tremendous  forces 
of  good  and  evil  are  slumbering  ;  traffic  and  finance 
seem  matters  of  secondary  interest  or  occupation 
when  such  passions  are  stirring  and  striving.  And 
yet  **  Vistas  "  is  peculiarly  a  book  of  our  time  ;  it 
registers  the  revolt  which  the  man  of  insight  and 
artistic  temper  always  makes  when  conventions 
begin  to  cut  to  the  quick,  and  the  air  becomes  close 
and  heavy.      The  human  spirit  must  have  room  and 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  163 

By  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 

sweep;  it  must  feel  continually  the  great  forces 
which  play  tlirough  it ;  it  must  carry  with  it  the 
continual  consciousness  of  its  possibilities  of  good  and 
evil.  And  the  more  orderly  society  becomes  the 
greater  will  be  the  need  of  keeping  alive  the  sense  of 
peril  and  uncertainty  from  forces  which  may  be 
quiescent  but  which  are  never  dead  ;  of  remember- 
ing that  there  must  be  freedom  as  well  as  restraint, 
and  that  the  policeman  must  represent  an  order 
which  is  accepted  as  well  as  enforced. 

The  dramatists  and  the  novelists  continually  shatter 
our  sense  of  security  by  reminding  us  that  if  Arthur 
Dimmesdale  is  dead,  Philip  Christian  survives  ;  that 
if  Isolde  has  perished,  Anna  Karenina  still  lives;  that 
if  Francesca  da  Rimini  is  no  longer  swept  by  the 
relentless  blasts,  Tess  is  not  less  tragically  borne  on 
to  her  doom.  The  commonplace  man  sees  the 
commonplace  so  constantly  that  he  needs  in  every 
age  his  kinsman  of  keener  sight  and  finer  spirit  to 
remind  him  that  life  is  not  in  things  ;  and  that 
neither  peace  for  traffic  nor  order  for  quietness  of 
mind  is  its  supreme  end.  And,  after  all,  the  sing- 
ing of  the  open  fire  is  the  sweeter  for  the  tumult 
beyond  the  walls. 


One  Word  More 
By 

Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 


ONE   WORD   MORE 

nrHE   contemporary  writing  which  is  commonly 
*       Tailed  "decadent"  has  one  quality  which  is 
likely  to  be  fatal  to  its   permanence,  —  it  wears  out 
the  reacer's  interest.      On  the  first  reading  it  has  a 
certain  rewness  of  manner,  a  certain  unconventional- 
ity  of  fom  and  idea,  which  catch  the  attention ;  but 
these  qualties  catch  the  attention,  they  do  not  hold  it ; 
with  each  mccessive  reading  the  spell  weakens  until  it 
is  largely  sjent.     We  discover  that  the  manner  which 
caught  us,  so  to  speak,  at  the  start,  is   either   self- 
conscious  c  tricky ;  and  both  qualities  are  fatal  to 
permanence     There  is  nothing  so  inimical  to  the 
highest  succss  in  art  as  self-consciousness,  and  noth- 
ing is  so  socn  discovered  as  a  trick  of  style.      It  is, 
of  course,  bth  unintelligent  and  idle  to  characterize 
a  considerabl  mass  of  writing  in  general  terms  ;  but, 
even  with  sth  differences  of  insight  and  ability  as 
the   decadent  literature   reveals,  it  has  certain  char- 
acteristics in  :ommon,  and  these  characteristics  dis- 

167 


i68  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

One  Word  More 

close    its    essential    qualities.      They   are    significant 
enough  to  furnish  a  basis  for  a  dispassionate  opinion. 

With  the  revolt  against  the  conventional  and  the 
commonplace,  especially  on  the  part  of  the  youngest 
men,  every  lover  of  sound  w^riting  must  be  heartily 
in    sympathy.     In   a   time   when     Edv^nn    Arnold, 
Alfred  Austin,  and  Lewis  Morris  are  gravely  brought 
forward  as  fit  candidates  for  the  laureateship  which 
Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  held  in  succession,it  is  not 
surprising  that  young  men  with  a  real  feelinj  for  lit- 
erature  fall  to  cursing  and    take    refuge  ii   eccen- 
tricity  of  all  kinds.      It  must  frankly  be  confessed 
that  a  great  deal  of  current  writing,  whib  uncom- 
monly good  as  regards  form  and  taste,  is  devoid  of 
anything  approaching  freshness  of  feeling  3r  original- 
ity of  idea.     Its  prime  characteristic  is  well-bred, 
well-dressed,  and  well-mannered  mediocriy  ;  of  con- 
tact with  life  it  gives  no  faintest  evideno ;  of  imag- 
ination, passion,  and  feeling  —  those  pime  qualities 
out  of  which  great  literature  is  compomded  —  it  is 
as   innocent   as    the    average   Sunday-Shool    publi- 
cation.     It  is  not  without  form,   butit  is  utterly 
void.  / 

That   men  who  are  conscious,   ev^  in  a  blind 


I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  169 

By  Hamilton  W.    Mabie 

way,  of  the  tragic  elements  of  life  should  revolt 
against  this  widespread  dominion  of  the  commonplace 
is  matter  neither  for  astonishment  nor  regret ;  if  they 
have  blood  in  their  veins  and  vitality  in  their  brains,  they 
cannot  do  otherwise.  The  responsibility  for  excesses 
and  eccentricities  generally  rests  with  the  conditions 
which  have  set  the  reaction  in  motion.  When  men 
begin  to  suiFocate,  windows  are  likely  to  be  broken  as 
well  as  opened ;  when  Philistia  waxes  prosperous 
and  boastful,  Bohemia  receives  sudden  and  notable 
accessions  of  population. 

Among  English-speaking  people  at  least,  it  is 
chiefly  as  a  reaction  that  decadent  literature  is  signifi- 
cant. It  is  an  attempt  to  get  away  from  the  mortal 
dulness  of  the  mass  of  contemporary  writing,  —  an 
effort  to  see  life  anew  and  feel  it  afresh.  In  many 
cases,  it  is,  however,  mistaken  not  only  in  morals, 
but  in  method  :  it  confuses  mannerism  with  origi- 
nality, and  unconventionality  with  power.  A  manner 
may  be  novel  and,  at  the  same  tim.e,  bad ;  one  may 
be  unconventional  and,  at  the  same  time,  essentially 
weak.  In  moments  of  hot  and  righteous  indignation 
a  little  cursing  of  the  right  sort  may  be  pardonable  j 
but  cursing  has  no  lasting  quality. 


I70  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

One  Word  More 

A  revolt  against  too  many  clothes,  or  against  a 
deadly  uniformity  of  cut  and  style,  is  always  justifi- 
able ;  but  nudity  is  not  the  only  alternative  ;  there 
is  an  intermediate  position  in  w^hich  one  may  be 
both  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  more  certain  than  that  the 
originality  of  the  greater  and  more  enduring  books  is 
free  from  self-consciousness,  mannerism,  and  eccen- 
tricity in  any  form.  As  a  rule,  the  greater  the  work 
the  greater  the  difficulty  of  classifying  it,  of  putting 
one's  hand  on  the  secret  of  its  charm,  of  describing 
it  in  a  phrase.  The  contrast  between  Shakespeare 
and  Maeterlinck  is,  in  this  respect,  so  striking  that 
one  wonders  how  the  admirers  of  the  gifted  Belgian 
were  led  into  the  blunder  of  forcing  it  upon  contem- 
porary readers.  Maeterlinck  has  unmistakable  power  ; 
his  skill  in  introducing  atmospheric  effects,  in  assailing 
the  senses  of  his  readers  without  awakening  their 
consciousness  that  powerful  influences  are  in  the  air, 
his  genius  in  the  use  of  suggestion,  are  evident  almost 
at  a  glance.  But  when  one  has  read  **  The  In- 
truder** or  **  The  Princess  Maleine"  one  has,  in  a 
way,  read  all  these  powerful  and  intensely  individual 
dramas.     They  are  all  worked  out  by  a  single  method. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  "TtT 

By  Hamilton  W.   Mabie 

and  that  method  is  instantly  detected.  Maeterlinck's 
manner  is  so  obvious  that  no  one  can  overlook  or 
mistake  it.  With  Shakespeare,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  the  greatest  difficulty  in  discovering  any  man- 
ner at  all.  At  his  best  Shakespeare  is  magical ;  there 
is  no  getdng  at  his  way  of  doing  things.  His  method 
is  so  free,  so  natural,  so  varied,  and  moves  along  such 
simple  lines  that  we  take  it  for  granted,  as  if  it  were 
a  part  of  the  order  of  things.  There  is  a  kind  of  ele- 
mental unconsciousness  in  him  which  gives  his  artis- 
tic processes  the  apparent  ease,  the  fulness,  and  range 
of  the  processes  of  nature. 

**  The  great  merit,  it  seems  to  me,"  writes  Mr. 
Lowell  to  Professor  Norton,  **  of  the  old  painters  was 
that  they  did  not  try  to  be  original.  *  To  say  a 
thing,*  says  Goethe,  'that  everybody  else  has  said 
before,  as  quietly  as  if  nobody  had  ever  said  it,  tbat 
is  originality.*  *'  In  other  words,  originality  con- 
sists not  in  saying  new  things,  but  in  saying  true 
things.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  great  writers 
have  no  surprises  for  us  ;  they  lift  into  the  light  of 
clear  expression  things  that  have  lain  silent  at  the 
bottom  of  our  natures  ;  things  profoundly  felt,  but 
never  spoken.     In  like  manner,  originality  in  form 


172  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

One  Word  More 

and  style  is  not  a  matter  of  novelty,  but  of  deeper 
feeling  and  surer  touch.  A  piece  of  work  which, 
like  a  popular  song,  has  a  rhythm  or  manner  which 
catches  the  senses,  may  have  a  lusty  life,  but  is 
certain  to  have  a  brief  one.  There  is  nothing 
**  catching "  or  striking,  in  the  superficial  sense,  in 
the  greater  works  of  art.  Their  very  simplicity 
hides  their  superiority,  and  the  world  makes  acquaint- 
ance with  them  very  slowly. 

A  genuine  reaction,  of  the  kind  which  predicts  a 
true  liberation  of  the  imagination,  is  only  momen- 
tarily a  revolt  against  outgrown  methods  and  the 
feebleness  of  a  purely  imitative  art ;  it  is  essentially 
a  return  to  the  sources  of  power.  It  begins  in 
revolt,  but  it  does  not  long  rest  in  that  negative 
stage ;  it  passes  on  to  reconstruction,  to  creative 
work  in  a  new  and  independent  spirit.  Goethe  and 
Schiller  went  through  the  Sturm  and  Drang  period  ; 
they  did  not  stay  in  it.  **  The  Sorrows  of 
Werther "  and  *' Goetz "  were  followed  by 
"Tasso"  and  "Faust;"  and  "The  Robbers" 
soon  gave  place  to  **  William  Tell."  The  Roman- 
ticists who  made  such  an  uproar  when  "  Hernani  " 
was  put  on  the  ^stage,  did  not  long  wear  red  waist- 


I 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  173 

By  Hamilton  W.    Mabie 

coats  and   flowing  locks  ;    they  went  to    work  and 
brought  forth  the  solid   fruits  of  genius. 

The  man  on  the  barricade  is  a  picturesque  figure, 
but  he  must  not  stay  too  long  or  he  becomes  ridicu- 
lous ;  the  insurrection,  if  it  means  anything,  must 
issue  in  a  permanent  social  or  political  order.  Even 
genius  will  not  redeem  perpetual  revolt  from  monot- 
ony, as  the  case  of  Byron  clearly  shows.  Revolt  is 
inspiring  if  it  is  the  prelude  to  a  new  and  better 
order ;  if  it  falls  short  of  this  achievement,  it  is  only 
a  disturbance  of  the  peace.  It  means,  in  that  case, 
that  there  is  dissatisfaction,  but  that  the  reaction  has 
no  more  real  power  than  the  tyranny  or  stupidity 
against  which  it  takes  up  arms.  The  new  impulse 
in  literature,  when  it  comes,  will  evidence  its  pres- 
ence neither  by  indecency  nor  by  eccentricity  ;  but 
by  a  certain  noble  simplicity,  by  the  sanity  upon 
which  a  great  authority  always  ultimately  rests,  by 
the  clearness  of  its  insight,  and  the  depth  of  its  sym- 
pathy with  that  deeper  life  of  humanity,  in  which 
are  the  springs  of  originality  and  productiveness. 


The  Man  Who  Dares 

By 

Louise  Chandler  Moulton 


I 


THE   MAN   WHO   DARES 


"  BALLADS    AND    SONGS,"     BY    JOHN    DAVIDSON 


GRANT  ALLEN  has  written  of  "  The  Woman 
Who  Did  "  —  and  the  tide  suggests  that  John 
Davidson  may  My  be  called  "  The  Man  Who 
Dares  ;  '*  for  certainly  some  of  his  themes  and  some 
of  his  lines,  in  this  his  latest  book,  are  among  the 
most  daring  in   modern   literature. 

Richard  Le  Gallienne,  in  comparing  William 
Watson  and  John  Davidson,  suggests  that  Davidson 
is  a  great  man,  and  Watson  a  great  manner.  This 
is  a  statement  I  am  not  ready  to  indorse.  I  think 
Watson  has  much  more  than  a  great  manner.  He 
has  noble  and  stately  thought,  a  large  outlook,  and, 
in  his  own  direction,  subtle  and  keen  perception. 
He  knows  the  moods  of  the  spirit,  the  reach  of  the 
soul ;  but  the  human  heart  does  not  cry  out  to  him. 
He  waits  in  the  stately  Court  of  the  Intellect,  and  sur- 
veys the  far  heavens  through  its  luminous  windows. 

Davidson,  on  the  contrary,  hearkens  to  the  heart's 
cry.     The    passionate    senses    clamor   in    his    lines. 

12  177 


178  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Man  Who  Dares 

Ceaseless  unrest  assails  him.  Doubt  and  faith  war 
in  him  for  mastery.  Above  all  he  is  human ;  and, 
secondly,  he  is  modern.  "Perfervid,"  **A  Prac- 
tical Novelist,"  and  two  or  three  other  tales,  at  once 
merry  and  fantastic,  prove  his  gifts  as  a  story-teller. 
He  has  written  several  delightful  plays,  among  which 
"Scaramouch  In  Naxos  "  is,  perhaps,  the  most  re- 
markable. Its  originality,  its  charm,  its  wayward 
grace  give  it  a  place  to  itself  in  modern  literature  ; 
and  I  doubt  if  we  have  any  other  man  who  could 
have  given  us  quite  the  same  thing.  But  when  the 
right  to  careful  attention  of  his  other  work  has 
been  fully  admitted,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  no- 
where does  he  more  thoroughly  prove  his  high  claim 
to  distinction  than  in  his  "Fleet-Street  Eclogues," 
and   his  new   volume  of  "Ballads   and  Songs." 

Of  all  these  Ballads  the  three  that  have  most 
moved  me  are  "A  Ballad  of  a  Nun,"  "A  Ballad  of 
Heaven,"  and  *«  A  Ballad  of  Hell."  There  is  much 
crude  strength  in  "A  Ballad  in  Blank  Verse 
of  the  Making  of  a  Poet ; "  but  the  blank  verse, 
impassioned  though  it  be,  has  neither  the  stately 
splendor  of  Milton  nor  the  artistic  and  finished  grace 
of  Tennyson.      It  is  fall  of  stress  and  strain,  —  this 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  179 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

story  of  a  youth  who  was  brought  up  by  a  father 
and  mother  who  really  believed  that  the  soul's  proba- 
tion ends  with  this  brief  span  of  earthly  life,  and  that 


**  In  life  it  is  your  privilege  to  choose, 
But  after  death  you  have  no  choice  at  all." 


H^  He  tortured  his  mother  by  his  unbelief,  until  he 
slowly  broke  her  heart,  and  "  she  died,  in  anguish 
for   his  sins."      His  father   upbraided   him,  and   he 

I  cried  —  very  naturally,  if  not  very  poetically  — 
«*0h,  let  mebe  !" 
Then  he  sought  his  Aphrodite,  and  found  her, 
dull,  tawdry,  unbeautiful,  —  an  outcast  of  the  streets. 
He  wrote  his  dreams  ;  and  then  he  felt  that  they 
were  lies.  He  grew  desperate,  at  last,  and  pro- 
fessed himself  convicted  of  sin,  and  became  a  Chris- 
tian —  resolved  to  please  his  father,  if  he  could  not 
please  himself.  But  this  phase  could  not  last ;  and 
he  shattered  his  father's  new-found  happiness  by  a 
wild  denunciation  of  all  creeds,  and  an  assertion  that 
there  is  no  God  higher  than  ourselves.  Then  was 
the  father  torn  between  his  desire  to  seek  his  wife  in 
Heaven,  and  his  impulse  to  go  with  his  son  into  the 


i8o  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Man  Who  Dares 

jaws  of  Hell.  At  last,  in  his  turn,  the  father  died  ; 
and  the  poet  —  the  child  of  storm  and  stress  —  was 
left  at  liberty  to  be  himself — 


(( 


a  thoroughfare 


For  all  the  pageantry  of  Time  ;  to  catch 
The  mutterings  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Hour, 
And  make  them  known.'* 

There  are  lines,  here  and  there,  in  this  poem  of 
exquisite  beauty  ;  but  there  are  others  that  seem  to 
me  "tolerable   and   not   to  be  endured." 

I  make  my  **  Exodus  From  Houndsditch,'*  with- 
out as  yet  being  tempted  to  linger  there,  and  come 
to  **  A  Ballad  of  a  Nun."  And  here,  indeed,  you 
have  something  of  which  only  John  Davidson  has 
proved  himself  capable.  The  Ballad  tells  the  old 
Roman  Catholic  legend  of  the  Nun  whom  the  lust 
of  the  flesh  tempted. 

There  are  stanzas  here  of  such  splendid  power 
and  beauty  that  they  thrill  one  like  noble  and  stirring 
music.  You  shall  listen  to  some  of  them.  The 
Abbess  loved  this  Nun  so  well  that  she  had  trusted 
her  above  all  the  rest,  and  made  her  the  Keeper  of 
the  Door  :  — 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  i8i 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

*'  High  on  a  hill  the  Convent  hung, 
Across  a  duchy  looking  down. 
Where  everlasting  mountains  flung 
Their  shadows  over  tower  and  town. 

**  The  jewels  of  their  lofty  snows 
In  constellations  flashed  at  night  j 
Above  their  crests  the  moon  arose  ; 
The  deep  earth  shuddered  with  delight. 

**Long  ere  she  left  her  cloudy  bed. 
Still  dreaming  in  the  orient  land. 
On  many  a  mountain's  happy  head 
Dawn  lightly  laid  her  rosy  hand. 

*'  The  adventurous  sun  took  heaven  by  storm  ; 
Clouds  scattered  largesses  of  rain  ; 
The  sounding  cities,  rich  and  warm. 
Smouldered  and  glittered  in  the  plain. 

*  *  Sometimes  it  was  a  wandering  wind, 
Sometimes  the  fragrance  of  the  pine. 
Sometimes  the  thought  how  others  sinned 
That  turned  her  sweet  blood  into  wine. 

*<  Sometimes  she  heard  a  serenade 
Complaining  sweetly,  far  away  : 
She  said,  *  A  young  man  wooes  a  maid  j  * 
And  dreamt  of  love  till  break  of  day.'* 


i82  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Man  Who  Dares 

In  vain  she  plied  her  knotted  scourge.  Day  after 
day  she  "had  still  the  same  red  sin  to  purge.'* 
Winter  came,  and  the  snow  shut  in  hill  and  plain ; 
and  she  watched  the  nearest  city  glow  beneath  the 
frosty  sky.  <*  Her  hungry  heart  devoured  the 
town  ;  "  until,  at  last,  she  tore  her  fillet  and  veil 
into  strips,  and  cast  aside  the  ring  and  bracelet  that 
she  wore  as  the  betrothed  of  Christ :  — 

**  *  Life's  dearest  meaning  I  shall  probe  ; 
Lo  !  I  shall  taste  of  love,  at  last  ! 
Away  ! '   She  doffed  her  outer  robe. 
And  sent  it  sailing  down  the  blast. 

<*  Her  body  seemed  to  warm  the  wind  j 
With  bleeding  feet  o'er  ice  she  ran  j 
*  I  leave  the  righteous  God  behind  j 
I  go  to  worship  sinful  man.'  " 

She  reached  "the  sounding  city's  gate."  She 
drank  the  wild  cup  of  love  to  the  dregs.  She 
cried  — 

**  *  I  am  sister  to  the  mountains,  now. 
And  sister  to  the  sun  and  moon.'  " 

She  made  her  queen-like  progress.  She  loved 
and  lived  — 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  183 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

<*  But  soon  her  fire  to  ashes  burned  j 
Her  beauty  changed  to  haggardness  ; 
Her  golden  hair  to  silver  turned  j 
The  hour  came  of  her  last  caress. 


ti 


At  midnight  from  her  lonely  bed 
She  rose,  and  said,  *  I  have  had  my  will."* 
The  old  ragged  robe  she  donned,  and  fled 
Back  to  the  convent  on  the  hill.'' 


She  blessed,  as  she  ran  thither,  the  comfortable 
convent  laws  by  which  nuns  who  had  sinned  as  she 
had  done  were  buried  alive.  But  I  must  copy  the 
remaining  stanzas,  for  no  condensation  can  do  justice 
to  their  tender,  piteous,  triumphant  charm  :  — 

**Like  tired  bells  chiming  in  their  sleep. 
The  wind  faint  peals  of  laughter  bore  j 
She  stopped  her  ears  and  climbed  the  steep. 
And  thundered  at  the  convent  door. 

**  It  opened  straight  :  she  entered  in. 
And  at  the  Wardress'  feet  fell  prone  : 
*  I  come  to  purge  away  my  sin  ; 
Bury  me,  close  me  up  in  stone.' 

**  The  Wardress  raised  her  tenderly  j 
She  touched  her  wet  and  fast-shut  eyes  : 


184-  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Man  Who  Dares 

*  Look,  sister  j  sister,  look  at  me  j 

Look  ;  can  you  see  through  my  disguise  ?  * 

**  She  looked,  and  saw  her  own  sad  face, 
And  trembled,  wondering,  *  Who  art  thou  ? ' 

*  God  sent  me  down  to  fill  your  place  : 
I  am  the  Virgin  Mary  now.' 

<*  And  with  the  word,  God's  mother  shone  : 
The  wanderer  whispered,  *  Mary,  Hail  !  * 
The  vision  helped  her  to  put  on 
Bracelet  and  fillet,  ring  and  veil. 

**  *  You  are  sister  to  the  mountains  now. 
And  sister  to  the  day  and  night  j 
Sister  to  God.'     And  on  the  brow 
She  kissed  her  thrice,  and  left  her  sight. 

"  While  dreaming  in  her  cloudy  bed. 
Far  in  the  crimson  orient  land. 
On  many  a  mountain's  happy  head 
Dawn  lightly  laid  her  rosy  hand." 

"A  Ballad  of  a  Nun  "  seems  to  me  Mr.  David- 
son's   crowning    achievement ;     yet    "  A    Ballad    of 
Heaven"  and  "A  Ballad  of  Hell"  are  scarcely  less 
striking.     In    "A    Ballad    of  Heaven "   there   is  a 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  185 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

musician  who  works  for  years  at  one  great  compo- 
sition. The  world  ignores  him.  His  wife  and 
child,  clothed  in  rags,  are  starving  in  their  windy 
garret ;  but  he  does  not  know  it,  for  he  dwells  in  the 
strange,  far  heaven  of  his  music. 

*<  Wistful  he  grew,  but  never  feared  ; 
For  always  on  the  midnight  skies 
His  rich  orchestral  score  appeared. 
In  stars  and  zones  and  galaxies." 

He  turns,  at  last,  from  his  completed  score  to 
seek  the  sympathy  of  love  ;  but  wife  and  child  are 
lying  dead.  He  gathers  to  his  breast  the  stark,  wan 
wife  with  the  baby  skeleton  in  her  arms. 

**  *  You  see  you  are  alive,'  he  cried. 
He  rocked  them  gently  to  and  fro. 
*  No,  no,  my  love,  you  have  not  died  ; 
Nor  you,  my  little  fellow  j  no.* 

**  Long  in  his  arms  he  strained  his  dead. 
And  crooned  an  antique  lullaby  ; 
Then  laid  them  on  the  lowly  bed. 
And  broke  down  with  a  doleful  cry.'* 

Then  his  own  heart  broke,  at  last,  and  he,  too, 
was  dead. 


i86  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


The  Man  Who  Dares 


"  Straightway  he  stood  at  heaven's  gate 
Abashed,  and  trembling  for  his  sin  : 
I  trow  he  had  not  long  to  wait 
For  God  came  out  and  led  him  in. 

"  And  then  there  ran  a  radiant  pair. 
Ruddy  with  haste  and  eager-eyed. 
To  meet  him  first  upon  the  stair  — 
His  wife  and  child,  beatified. 

**  God,  smiling,  took  him  by  the  hand. 
And  led  him  to  the  brink  of  heaven  : 
He  saw  where  systems  whirling  stand. 
Where  galaxies  like  snow  are  driven." 

And  lo  !  it  was  to  his  own  music  that  the  very 
spheres  were  moving. 

"  A  Ballad  of  Hell "  tells  the  story  of  a  woman's 
love  and  a  woman's  courage.  Her  lover  writes  her 
that  he  must  go  to  prison,  unless  he  marries,  the 
next  day,  his  cousin  whom  he  abhors.  There  is  no 
refuge  but  in  death  ;  and  by  her  love  he  conjures 
her  to  kill  herself  at  midnight,  and  meet  him,  though 
it  must  be  in  Hell.  She  waited  till  sleep  had  fallen 
on  the  house.  Then  out  into  the  night  she  went, 
hurried  to  the  trysting  oak,  and  there  she  drove  her 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  187 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

dagger  home  into  her  heart,  and  fell  on  sleep.  She 
woke  in  Hell.  The  devil  was  quite  ready  to  wel- 
come her  ;  but  she  answered  him  only  — 


(( ( 


I  am  young  Malespina's  bride  j 
Has  he  come  hither  yet  ? '  '* 

But  Malespina  had  turned  coward,  when  the 
supreme  test  came,  and  he  was  to  marry  his  cousin 
on  the  morrow.  For  long,  and  long,  she  would  not 
believe  ;  but  when  long  waiting  brought  certainty, 
at  last,  she  cried  — 

*<  *  I  was  betrayed.     I  will  not  stay.'  " 

And   straight   across    the    gulf    between    Hell    and 
Heaven  she  walked  :  — 

*  *  To  her  It  seemed  a  meadow  fair  ; 
And  flowers  sprang  up  about  her  feet  j 
She  entered  Heaven  j  she  climbed  the  stair. 
And  knelt  down  at  the  mercy-seat." 

Next  to  these  three  Ballads  I  should  rank  "  Thirty 
Bob  A  Week."  It  is  of  the  solid  earth,  and  has 
none  of  the  Dantesque  weirdness  of  the  Ballads  of 
Hell  and  Heaven  ;  but  it  is  stronger  than  either  of 


i88  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Man  Who  Dares 

them  in  its  own  way  —  this  monologue  of  the  man 
who  must  live  on  thirty  shillings  a  week,  and  make 
the  best  of  it. 

**  But  the  difficultest  go  to  understand, 
And  the  difficultest  job  a  man  can  do. 
Is  to  come  it  brave  and  meek,  with  thirty  bob  a  week, 
And  feel  that  that 's  the  proper  thing  for  you. 

"  It's  a  naked  child  against  a  hungry  wolf  j 
It's  playing  bowls  upon  a  splitting  wreck  j 
It 's  walking  on  a  string  across  a  gulf. 
With  millstones  fore-an-aft  about  your  neck  j 
But  the  thing  is  daily  done  by  many  and  many  a  one  ; 
And  we  fall,  face-forward,  fighting,  on  the  deck." 

Here  is  a  man  to  whom  nothing  human  is  foreign 
—  who  understands  because  he  feels. 

It  is  the  **  Ballads "  rather  than  the  "  Songs,'* 
which  give  to  this  book  its  exceptional  value,  yet 
some  of  the  Songs  are  charming  —  for  instance,  the 
two  "  To  the  Street  Piano,'*  "  A  Laborer's  Wife," 
and  **  After  the  End."  Indeed  there  is  nothing  in 
the  volume  more  deeply  imbued  with  the  human 
sympathy,  of  which  Mr.  Davidson's  work  is  so 
pregnant,  than  these  two  songs.  Witness  the  refrain 
to  the  one  which  the  laborer's  wife  sings :  — 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  189 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

"  Oh  !  once  I  had  my  fling  ! 
I  romped  at  ging-go-ring  ; 
I  used  to  dance  and  sing. 
And  play  at  everything. 
I  never  feared  the  light } 
I  shrank  from  no  one's  sight  j 
I  saw  the  world  was  right  j 
I  always  slept  at  night." 

But  in  an  evil  hour  she  married,  "  on  the  sly.'* 
Now  three  pale  children  fight  and  whine  all  day  ; 
her  "man"  gets  drunk;  her  head  and  her  bones 
are  sore  ;  and  her  heart  is  hacked ;  and  she  sings  — 

"  Now  I  fear  the  light  j 
I  shrink  from  every  sight  j 
I  see  there  's  nothing  right } 
I  hope  to  die  to-night." 

"  After  the  End  "  is  in  a  very  different  key.  It 
is  more  universal.  Kings  and  queens,  as  well  as 
the  humblest  of  their  subjects,  may  well  cry  out, 
into  the  unknown  dark  — 

**  After  the  end  of  all  things. 
After  the  years  are  spent, 
After  the  loom  is  broken. 
After  the  robe  is  rent. 


190  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


The  Man  Who  Dares 


Will  there  be  hearts  a-beating. 
Will  friend  converse  with  friend, 
Will  men  and  women  be  lovers, 
After  the  end  ?  " 

**In  Romney  Marsh"  is  a  fascinating  bit  of  land- 
scape-painting ;  and  **  A  Cinque  Port  "  has  a  mel- 
ancholy and  suggestive  beauty  that  makes  me  long 
for  space  to  copy  it.  The  "  Songs  "  for  "  Spring," 
"  Summer,"  "  Autumn,"  and  **  Winter  "  are  charm- 
ing, also. 

There  is  thought  enough  and  strength  enough  in 
the  "Songs,"  "To  the  New  Women,"  and  "To 
the  New  Men ;  '  *  but  they  are  rhymed  prose, 
rather  than  poetry  —  if,  indeed,  **  what  "and  "  hot " 
can  be  said  to  rhyme  with  "thought." 

Why,  oh  why,  does  Mr.  Davidson  treat  us  to  such 
uncouth  words  as  "  bellettrist,"  and  "  money ers," 
and  "strappadoes"  ?  —  why  talk  to  us  of  **  apes  in 
lusts  unspoken,"  and  "fools,  who  lick  the  lip  and 
roll  the  lustful  eye"?  "The  Exodus  From 
Houndsditch,"  which  contains  these  phrases,  is  cer- 
tainly hard  reading ;  but  one  is  compelled,  all  the 
same,  to  read  it  more  than  once,  for  it  is  pregnant 
with  thought,  and  here  and  there  it  is  starred  with 
splendid  lines,  such  as  — 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  191 

By  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

**  The  chill  wind  whispered  winter  ;  night  set  in  } 
Stars  flickered  high  j  and  like  a  tidal  wave, 
He  heard  the  rolling  multitudinous  din 
Of  life  the  city  lave  —  " 

or  the  picture  of  some  fantastic  world, 

<*  Where  wild  weeds  half  way  down  the  frowning  bank 
Flutter,  like  poor  apparel  stained  and  sere, 
And  lamplight  flowers,  with  hearts  of  gold,  their  rank 
And  baleful  blossoms  rear." 

One  closes  Mr.  Davidson's  book  with  reluctance, 
and  with  a  haunting  sense  of  beauty,  and  power, 
and  the  promise  of  yet  greater  things  to  come.  He  is 
a  young  man  —  scarcely  past  thirty;  what  laurels 
are  springing  up  for  him  to  gather  in  the  future, 
who  shall  say  ?  Happily  he  is  not  faultless  —  since 
for  the  faultless  there  is  no  perspective  of  hope. 


R.  L.  S.  —  Some  Edinburgh 

Notes 
By 

Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 


R.    L.   S.  — SOME   EDINBURGH   NOTES 

Give  me  again  all  that  was  there, 
Give  me  the  sun  that  shone  ! 
Give  me  the  eyes,  give  me  the  soul. 
Give  me  the  lad  that 's  gone  ! 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

T  GUIS  STEVENSON  was  born  in  8  Hov^rard 
•'— '  Place,  then  an  outlying  suburban  street  between 
Edinburgh  and  the  sea  ;  and  the  substantial  but  un- 
pretending house  with  its  small  plot  of  garden  in 
front  will  doubtless  be  visited  with  interest  in  future 
by  those  who  like  to  look  on  the  birthplaces  of 
famous  men. 

17  Heriot  Row,  on  one  of  Edinburgh's  level  ter- 
races between  the  steep  hills,  *'  from  which  you  see 
a  perspective  of  a  mile  or  so  of  falling  street,'*  be- 
came his  home  before  he  was  out  of  velvet  tunics 
and  socks,  but  as  his  mother  was  delicate,  they  lived 
when  the  weather  was  genial  "  in  the  green  lap  of  the 
Jutland  Hills,"  at  Swanston,  a  few  miles  from  Edin- 

^95 


196  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

R.  S.  L.  —  Some  Edinburgh  Notes 

burgh.  He,  however,  spent  his  winters  at  Heriot 
Row,  when  he  grew  into  an  Academy  boy,  though 
not  a  specially  brilliant  scholar.  His  doubtful  health 
would  often  stand  as  an  excuse,  when  the  rain  splat- 
tered on  the  panes,  or  the  square  gardens  opposite 
were  hid  in  a  scowling  "  haur,'  *  for  the  small  Louis 
to  remain  and  "  Child  Play  '*  beside  his  pretty 
mother.  No  doubt,  too,  the  truant  spirit  was  strong 
within  him  when  he  trotted  down  hill  to  school, 
"rasping  his  clachan^  on  the  area  railings"  as  he 
made  an  Edinburgh  hero  of  his  do.  We  first  knew 
Louis  Stevenson  when  his  schooldays  and  teens  were 
past,  and  he  was  facing  what  he  called  "the  equi- 
noctial gales  of  youth,*  *  and  beginning  to  put  his  self- 
taught  art  of  writing  into  print.  He  had  great 
railings  against  his  native  town  in  these  days,  which 
were  somewhere  in  the  heart  of  the  seventies.  The 
"meteorological  purgatory  "  of  its  climate  embittered 
him,  as  his  frail  frame  suffered  sorely  from  the  bleak 
blasts.  He  vowed  his  fellow-townsmen  had  a  list  to 
one  side  by  reason  of  having  to  struggle  against  the 
East  wind.     He  gave  his  spleen   vent  in  "Pictur- 

^  A  clachan  is  a  wooden  racket  Edinburgh  Academy 
boys  play  ball  with. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  197 

By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

esque  Notes  of  Edinburgh,"  yet  by  way  of  apology 
he  says,  **the  place  establishes  an  interest  in  people's 
hearts ;  go  where  they  will,  they  find  no  city  of  the 
same  distinction,  go  where  they  will,  they  take  a 
pride  in  their  old  home."  No  one  could  clothe  the 
historical  tales  of  Edinburgh  in  more  graphic  words 
than  this  slim  son  of  hers.  Often  he  would  talk 
thereon,  and  he  speaks  of  his  joy,  as  a  lad,  in  finding 
**  a  nugget  of  cottages  at  Broughton  ;  "  and  any  bit 
of  old  village  embedded  in  the  modern  town,  he 
espied  and  rejoiced  over.  He  would  frequently  drop 
in  to  dinner  with  us,  and  of  an  evening  he  had  the 
run  of  our  smoking-room.  After  10  p.  m.,  when  a 
stern  old  servant  went  to  bed,  the  "open  sesame" 
to  our  door  was  a  rattle  on  the  letter-box.  He  liked 
this  admittance  by  secret  sign,  and  we  liked  to  hear 
his  special  rat-a-tat,  for  we  knew  we  would  then 
enjoy  an  hour  or  two  of  talk  which,  he  said,  **  is  the 
harmonious  speech  of  two  or  more,  and  is  by  far  the 
most  accessible  of  pleasures."  He  always  adhered 
to  the  same  dress  for  all  entertainments,  a  shabby, 
short,  velveteen  jacket,  a  loose,  Byronic,  collared 
shirt  (for  a  brief  space  he  adopted  black  flannel  ones), 
and  meagre,   shabby-looking  trousers.      His  straight 


198  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

R.  S.  L.  —  Some  Edinburgh  Notes 

hair  he  wore  long,  and  he  looked  like  an  unsuccessful 
artist,  or  a  poorly-clad  but  eager  student.  He  was 
then  fragile  in  figure  and,  to  use  a  Scottish  expression, 
shilpit  looking.  There  is  no  English  equivalent  for 
shilpity  being  lean,  starveling,  ill-thriven,  in  one.  His 
dark,  bright  eyes  were  his  most  noticeable  and  attrac- 
tive feature ,  —  wide  apart,  almost  Japanese  in  their 
shape,   and  above  them  a  fine  brow. 

He  was  pale  and  sallow,  and  there  was  a  foreign, 
almost  gypsy  look  about  him,  despite  his  long-headed 
.  Scotch  ancestry.  In  the  '*  Inland  Voyage,"  he  com- 
plains, he  **  never  succeeded  in  persuading  a  single 
ofiicial  abroad  of  his  nationality."  I  do  not  wonder 
he  was  suspected  of  being  a  spy  with  false  passports, 
for  he  had  a  very  un-British  smack  about  him ;  but, 
slim  and  pinched-looking  though  he  was,  he  still 
commanded  notice  by  his  unique  appearance  and  his 
vivacity  of  expression.  His  manners,  too,  had  a 
foreign  air  with  waving  gestures,  elaborate  bows,  and 
a  graceful  nimbleness  of  action. 

By  our  library  fire,  on  the  winter  evenings,  he 
planned  the  canoe  trip  with  my  brother,  and  told  us 
in  the  following  season  how  the  record  of  this  **  Inland 
Voyage"  progressed.      He  was  also  laying    future 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  199 

By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

plans  for  a  further  trip,  as  he  said,  smiling  with  fun, 
with  another  donkey,  —  this  time  to  the  Cevennes. 
After  the  **  Inland  Voyage,'*  Louis  was  full  of  a  pro- 
ject to  buy  a  barge  and  saunter  through  the  canals  of 
Europe,  Venice  being  the  far-off  terminus.  A  few 
select  shareholders  in  this  scheme  were  chosen, 
mostly  artists,  for  the  barge  plan  was  projected  in 
the  mellow  autumnal  days  at  Fontainebleau  Forest 
where  artists  abounded.  Robert  A.  Stevenson, 
Louis's  cousin,  then  a  wielder  of  the  brush,  was  to 
be  of  the  company.  He,  too,  though  he  came  of  the 
shrewd  Scottish  civil  engineer  stock,  had,  like  his 
kinsman,  a  foreign  look  and  a  strong  touch  of  Bohe- 
mianism  in  him.  He,  also,  with  these  alien  looks, 
had  his  cousin's  attractive  power  of  speech  and  fertile 
imagination.  The  barge  company  were  then  all  in 
the  hey-day  of  their  youth.  They  were  to  paint 
fame-enduring  pictures,  as  they  leisurely  sailed  through 
life  and  Europe,  and  when  bowed,  gray-bearded, 
bald-headed  men,  they  were  to  cease  their  journeyings 
at  Venice.  There,  before  St.  Marks,  a  crowd  of 
clamorously  eager  picture-dealers  and  lovers  of  art  were 
to  be  waiting  to  purchase  the  wonderful  work  of  the 
wanderers.      The  scene  in  the  piazza  of  St.  Marks  on 


200  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

R.  S.  L.  —  Some  Edinburgh  Notes. 

the  barge's  arrival,  and  the  excited  throng  of  anxious 
buyers,  the  hoary-headed  artists,  tottering  under  the 
weight  of  canvases,  was  pictured  in  glowing  colors 
by  their  author,  when  the  forest  was  smelling  of  the 
"ripe  breath  of  autumn."  The  barge  was  pur- 
chased, but  bankruptcy  presently  stared  its  share- 
holders in  the  face.  The  picture-dealers  of  that 
day  were  not  thirsting  to  buy  shareholders*  pictures. 
The  man  of  the  pen  had  only  ventured  on  an  **  Inland 
Voyage,"  and  as  yet  no  golden  harvest  for  his 
work  lined  the  pockets  of  his  velveteen  coat.  The 
barge  was  arrested  and,  with  it,  the  canoes  which 
have  earned  an  everlasting  fame  through  the 
"  Arethusa's  *'  pen.  They  were  rescued,  the  barge 
sold,  and  the  company  wound  up. 

We  saw  most  of  Louis  Stevenson  in  winter,  when 
studies  and  rough  weather  held  him  in  Edinburgh.  In 
summer  he  was  off  to  the  country,  abroad,  or  yacht- 
ing on  the  West  coast,  for  in  his  posthumous  song  he 
truly  says  :  — 

"  Merry  of  soul  he  sailed  on  a  day 
Over  the  sea  to  Skye/' 

As  a  talker  by  the  winter's  fireside  in  these  un- 
known-to-fame  days,    we  give   him   the  crown   for 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  201 

By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

being  the  king  of  speakers.  His  reading,  his 
thoughts  thereon,  his  plans,  he  described  with  a 
graphic  and  nimble  tongue,  accompanied  by  the 
queer,  flourishing  gesticulations  and  the  "  speaking 
gestures  "  of  his  thin,  sensitive  hands.  We  teased 
him  unmercifully  for  his  peculiarities  in  dress  and 
manner.  It  did  not  become  a  youth  of  his  years, 
we  held,  to  affect  a  bizarre  style,  and  he  held  he 
lived  in  a  free  country,  and  could  exercise  his  own 
taste  at  will.  Nothing  annoyed  him  more  than  to 
affirm  his  shabby  clothes,  his  long  cloak,  which  he 
wore  instead  of  an  orthodox  great-coat,  were  eccen- 
tricities of  genius.  He  certainly  liked  to  be  noticed, 
for  he  was  full  of  the  self-absorbed  conceit  of  youth. 
If  he  was  not  the  central  figure,  he  took  what  we 
called  Stevensonian  ways  of  attracting  notice  to  him- 
self. He  would  spring  up  full  of  a  novel  notion  he 
had  to  expound  (and  his  brain  teemed  with  them), 
or  he  vowed  he  could  not  speak  trammelled  by  a 
coat,  and  asked  leave  to  talk  in  his  shirt-sleeves. 
For  all  these  mannerisms  he  had  to  stand  a  good 
deal  of  chaff,  which  he  never  resented,  though  he 
vehemently  defended  himself  or  fell  squashed  for  a 
brief  space  in  a  limp  mass  into  a  veritable  back  seat. 


202  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

R.  S.  L.  —  Some  Edinburgh  Notes 


Looking  back  through  the  mellowing  vista  of  years 
these  little  eccentric  whims  were  all  very  harmless 
and  guileless,  and  I  own  we  were  hard  on  the  sus- 
ceptible lad,  but,  as  we  told  him,  it  was  for  his 
good,  and  if  he  had  been  like  ourselves,  with  a  band 
of  brothers,  egotisms  would  have  been  stamped  out 
in  the  nursery.  He  would,  after  a  severe  shower 
of  chaff,  put  out  his  cigarette,  wind  himself  in  his 
cloak  and  silently,  with  an  elaborate  bow,  go  off; 
but,  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  he  bore  no  ill-will.  His 
very  sensitiveness  was  to  his  tormentors  conceit. 
He  wrote  of  himself  later  that  he  was  "a  very 
humble-minded  youth,  though  it  was  a  virtue  he 
never  had  much  credit  for."  He  is  credited  now 
with  it,  for  as  the  then  **  uncharted  desert  of  the 
future  "  lies  mapped  out,  we  see  that  his  fantastic 
ways  were  not  affectations,  but  second  nature,  to 
which  the  life  he  chose  in  the  subtle  south  was  an 
appropriate  setting.  We  never,  though  we  gibed 
him  sorely,  found  fault  with  his  enthusiasm  ;  it  was 
so  infectious  and  refreshing.  He  was  always  brimful 
of  new  ideas,  new  ventures,  full  of  sweeping  changes, 
a  rabid  radical,  a  religious  doubter  ;  though  with 
him,  as  with  many  others,  there  was  more  '*  belief 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  203 

By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

in  honest  doubt  than  half  their  creeds.'*  He  had 
an  almost  child-like  fund  of  insatiable  curiosity.  He 
thirsted  to  know  how  it  would  feel  to  be  in  other 
people's  shoes,  from  those  of  a  king  to  a  beggar,  and 
he  smoked  on  the  hearth  rug  an  endless  succession 
of  cigarettes  and  put  his  imaginations  thereof  into 
words. 

He  was  very  sore  and  somewhat  rebellious  over 
writing  not  being  considered  a  profession,  and  having 
to  bend  to  his  good  father  in  so  far  as  to  join  the 
Scottish  bar.  For  long  "  R.  L.  Stevenson,  Advo- 
cate," was  on  the  door-plate  of  17  Heriot  Row. 
The  Parliament  House  saw  him  seldom,  never 
therein  to  practise  his  bewigged  profession.  We 
frightened  him  much  by  avowing  that  a  clerk  was 
hunting  for  him,  and  even  the  rich  library  below  the 
trampling  advocate's  feet  could  not  wile  him  into 
the  old  Hall  for  some  time  after  that  false  scare. 
He  also  heard  he  had  been  dubbed  '*  That  Gifted 
Boy  and  the  New  Chatterton  "  by  an  idle  legal  wit. 
That  name  more  nearly  persuaded  him  to  have  his 
hair  shorn  to  an  orthodox  length  than  any  other 
entreaty.  Like  all  people  with  character,  he  had 
animosities,   but   he   was  very  just    and    tolerant  in 


ao4  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

R,  S.  L. — Some  Edinburgh  Notes 

belaboring  an  adversary  with  his  tongue,  which,  con- 
sidering he  was  in  the  full  bloom  of  the  critical 
self-satisfiedness  of  youth,  showed  a  just  mind  and 
kindliness  of  heart.  When  he  had  fallen  foul  of 
and  had  hurled  some  sarcasms  at  the  stupid  dulness 
of  people,  he  next,  in  his  queer  inquisitive  way, 
fell  to  wondering  what  it  would  be  like  to  be  inside 
their  torpid  minds  and  view  things  from  their  dead 
level.  He  was  fond  of  travel,  of  boating,  of  walk- 
ing tours,  but  he  was  no  sportsman,  and  not  even  a 
lover  of  the  Gentle  Art.  Though  his  friends  were 
all  golfers  (and  golf  then  was  mostly  confined  to 
Scotland),  I  do  not  think  he  ever  took  a  club  in 
hand.  His  eyes,  when  outside,  were  wholly  occu- 
pied enjoying  his  surroundings  and  painting  them  in 
words.  "Even  in  the  thickest  of  our  streets,"  he 
noted,  "  the  country  hill-tops  find  out  a  young 
man's  eyes  and  set  his  heart  beating  for  travel  and 
pure  air.'*  He  loved  to  wander  round  his  native 
city.  Duddingstone  was  one  favorite  haunt.  Queens- 
ferry  was  another,  and  the  Hawes  Inn  there,  now 
grown  into  a  villafied  hotel,  with  the  hawthorn 
hedges  still  in  its  garden,  had  attractions  for  him. 
From  it  Davie  Balfour  was  **  kidnapped,"  and  Rest- 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  205 

By  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

And-Be-Thankful  on  Corstorphine  Hill,  where 
Allan  and  Davie  part  after  their  adventures,  we 
often  walked  to  on  Sundays,  and  all  the  while  he 
was  busy  talking  and  full  of  plans  and  projects. 
The  Jekyll  and  Hyde  plot  he  had  in  his  brain,  and 
told  us  of  in  those  days.  Burke  and  Hare  had  a 
fascination  for  him.  A  novel  called  the  **  Great 
North  Road  "  was  another  plot  in  his  mind.  His 
**  Virginibus  Puerisque  "  is  dedicated  to  W.  E.  Hen- 
ley, of  whom  I  heard  Stevenson  speak  when  he  had 
first  discovered  him  an  invalid  in  the  Edinburgh 
Infirmary.  He  came  in  glowing  with  delight  at  the 
genius  he  had  found  and  began  ransacking  our  shelves 
for  books  for  him.  A  few  days  later  he  was  brist- 
ling with  indignation  because  some  people  who  vis- 
ited the  sick  objected  to  the  advanced  and  foreign 
literary  food  Stevenson  had  fed  his  new  acquaintance 
on,  and  left  a  new  supply  of  tract  literature  in  their 
stead.  In  the  preface  of  *' Virginibus  Puerisque," 
which  is  dedicated  to  Mr.  Henley,  Stevenson  says  : 
*'  These  papers  are  like  milestones  on  the  wayside  of 
my  life.'*  To  those  who  knew  him  in  these  past 
days  to  re-read  these  papers  seem  to  travel  the  same 
road  again  in  the  same  good  company.      They  re- 


2o6  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

R.  S.  L.  — Some  Edinburgh  Notes 

call  the  slight,  boyish-looking  youth  they  knew,  and 
to  those  who  live  under  the  stars  which  Stevenson 
thought  shone  so  bright  —  the  Edinburgh  street 
lamps  —  he  was  not  so  much  the  famous  author,  as 
the  sympathetic  comrade,  the  unique,  ideal  talker  we 
welcomed  of  yore.  As  he  truly  said,  "  The 
powers  and  the  ground  of  friendship  are  a  mystery," 
but  looking  back  I  can  discern  in  part  we  loved  the 
thing  he  was,  for  some  shadow  of  what  he  was 
to  be. 


Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's 

Sonnets 
By 
Richard  Henry  Stoddard 


MR.    GILBERT   PARKER'S   SONNETS.^ 

A  SEQUENCE  of  songs,  of  which  this  collection 
**■  of  Mr.  Parker's  sonnets  is  an  example,  is  more 
recondite  and  remote  than  most  of  its  readers  prob- 
ably imagine.  It  would  be  as  difficult  to  trace  its 
origins  as  to  trace  springs,  which,  flowing  from  many- 
subterranean  sources,  unite  somewhere  in  one  cur- 
rent, and  force  their  way  onward  and  upward  until 
they  appear  at  last,  and  are  hailed  as  the  well-heads 
of  famous  rivers.  Who  will  may  trace  its  beginnings 
to  the  lays  of  the  troubadours,  which  were  nothing 
if  they  were  not  amorous  :  I  am  content  to  find  them 
on  Italian  soil  in  the  sonnets  of  Petrarch,  and  on 
English  soil  in  the  sonnets  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey. 
What  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  to 
men  of  letters  the  world  over,  once  they  were  freed 
from  the  seclusion  of  the  manuscripts  which  sheltered 
them  so  long,  the  literature  of  Italy  was  to  English 

1  *' A  Lover's  Diary,  Songs  in  Sequence."  By 
Gilbert  Parker.  Cambridge  and  Chicago:  Stone  & 
Kimball.     MDCCCXCIV.     London:  Methuen  &  Co. 

14  209 


2IO CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets 

men  of  letters  from  the  days  of  Chaucer  down. 
They  read  Italian  more  than  they  read  Latin  and 
Greek :  they  wrote  Italian,  not  more  clumsily,  let 
us  hope,  than  they  wrote  English  :  and  they  so- 
journed in  Italy,  if  they  could  get  there,  not  greatly 
to  their  spiritual  welfare,  if  the  satirists  of  their  time 
are  to  be  believed.  One  need  not  be  deeply  read  in 
English  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  perceive 
its  obligations  to  Italian  literature,  to  detect  the  in- 
fluences of  Boccaccio,  and  Bandello,  and  other  Italian 
story-tellers  in  its  drama,  and  the  influence  of  Italian 
poets  in  its  poetry,  particularly  the  influence  of 
Petrarch,  the  sweetness,  the  grace,  the  ingenuity  of 
whose  amorous  effusions  captivated  the  facile  nature 
of  so  many  English  singers.  He  was  the  master  of 
Wyatt  and  Surrey,  who,  tracking  their  way  through 
the  snow  of  his  footprints,  introduced  the  sonnet 
form  into  English  verse,  and,  so  far  as  they  might, 
the  sonnet  spirit,  as  they  understood  it.  They  al- 
lowed themselves,  however,  licenses  of  variation  in 
the  construction  of  their  octaves  and  sextets,  which, 
judging  from  his  avoidance  of  them,  would  have  dis- 
pleased Petrarch,  —  a  proceeding  which  was  fol- 
lowed by  their  immediate  successors,   who  seldom 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  211 

By  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 

observed  the  strict  laws  of  the  Petrarchian  sonnet. 
Whether  the  sonnets  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  .were  ex- 
pressions of  genuine  emotion,  or  were  merely  poetic 
exercises,  is  not  evident  in  the  sonnets  themselves, 
which  are  formal  and  frigid  productions.  They 
were  handed  round  in  manuscript  copies,  and  greatly 
admired  in  the  courtly  circles  in  which  their  authors 
moved,  and  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Surrey  were 
collected  by  Master  Richard  Tottell,  to  whom  be- 
longs the  honor  of  publishing  the  first  miscellany  of 
English  verse.  That  this  miscellany,  the  original 
title  of  which  was  **  Songs  and  Sonnets  written  by 
the  ryght  honorable  Lorde  Henry  Howard,  late 
Earle  of  Surrey  and  other,' '  was  very  popular  is  cer- 
tain from  the  number  of  editions  through  which  it 
passed,  and  from  the  number  of  similar  publications 
by  which  it  was  followed.  It  was  an  epoch-making 
book,  like  the  «*  Reliques  "  of  good  Bishop  Percy 
two  centuries  afterwards,  and  like  that  rare  miscel- 
lany was  fruitful  of  results  in  the  direction  of  what 
chiefly  predominated  there,  —  the  current  of  per- 
sonal expression  in  amatory  sonnets.  The  first 
notable  scholar  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  a  scholar  who 
surpassed  his  masters  in  every  poetical  quality,  was 


2IZ  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  whose  sequence  of  sonnets  was 
given  to  the  world  five  years  after  his  death  as  '*  As- 
trophel  and  Stella."  This  was  in  1591.  Samuel 
Daniel  appeared  the  next  year  with  a  sequence  en- 
titled "Delia,**  Michael  Drayton  a  year  later  with 
a  sequence  entitled  "Idea,**  and  two  years  after  that 
came  Edmund  Spenser  with  a  sequence  entitled 
**  Amoretti.**  The  frequency  of  the  sonnet  form 
in  English  verse  was  determined  at  this  time  by  this 
cluster  of  poets,  to  which  the  names  of  Constable, 
Griffin,  and  others  might  be  added,  and  determined 
for  all  time  by  their  great  contemporary,  whose  pro- 
ficiency as  a  sonneteer,  outside  of  his  comedies,  was 
chiefly  confined  to  the  knowledge  of  **  Mr.  W.  H.*' 
and  his  friends  until  1609.  To  what  extent  this 
treasury  of  sonnets  is  read  now  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing  ;  but  it  cannot,  I  think,  be  a  large  one,  the 
fashion  of  verse  has  changed  so  much  since  they  were 
written.  They  should  be  read  for  what  they  are 
rather  than  what  we  might  wish  them  to  be  ;  in 
other  words,  from  the  Elizabethan  and  not  the  Vic- 
torian point  of  view.  So  read  they  seem  to  me 
**  choicely  good,**  as  Walton  said  of  their  like,  though 
I  cannot  say  that  they  are  much  better  than  the 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  213 

By  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 

strong  lines  that  are  now  in  fashion  in  this  critical 
age.  Only  two  of  these  sonnet  sequences  are  known 
to  have  been  inspired  by  real  persons,  Sidney's  **  As- 
trophel  and  Stella,"  which  celebrates  his  enamour- 
ment  of  Lady  Rich,  and  consists  of  one  hundred  and 
eight  sonnets  and  eleven  songs,  and  Spenser's  "  Am- 
oretti,"  which  celebrates  his  admiration  for  the  un- 
known beauty  whom  he  married  during  his  residence 
in  Ireland,  and  which  consists  of  eighty-eight  sonnets, 
and  an  epithalamium.  Of  the  two  sequences,  the 
Sidneyan  is  the  more  poetical,  and  making  allowance 
for  the  artificial  manner  in  which  it  is  written,  the 
more  impassioned,  certain  of  the  sonnets  authenticat- 
ing their  right  to  be  considered  genuine  by  virtue  of 
their  qualities  as  portraiture,  their  self-betrayal  of  the 
character  of  Sidney,  and  the  vividness  of  their  pic- 
turesque descriptions  or  suggestions.  Such  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  twenty-seventh  ( "  Because  I  oft,  in 
dark,  abstracted  guise"),  the  thirty-first  (**With 
how  sad  steps,  O  moon,  thou  climb' st  the  skies"), 
the  forty-first  (**  Having  this  day  my  horse,  my 
hand,  my  lance"),  the  fifty-fourth  ("Because  I 
breathe  not  love  to  every  one"),  the  eighty-fourth 
("Highway,  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be"). 


ai4  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets 

and  the  one  hundred  and  third  (*«  O  happy  Thames, 
that  didst  my  Stella  bear  *'  ).  If  Sidney  had  followed 
the  advice  of  his  Muse  in  the  first  of  these  sonnets, 

*'  Fool,  said  my  Muse  to  me,  look  in  thy  heart  and 
write,'' 

that  noble  heart  would  surely  have  taught  him  to 
write  in  a  simpler  and  more  sincere  fashion  than  he 
permitted  himself  to  do  in  **  Astrophel  and  Stella," 
which  is  more  important  for  what  it  promised  than 
for  what  it  achieved. 

The  ease  of  a  more  practised  poet  than  Sidney 
lived  to  be  is  manifest  in  Spenser's  "  Amoretti,'*  — 
as  manifest  there,  I  think,  as  in  **  The  Faerie 
Queene,"  the  musical  cadences  of  whose  stanzas  and, 
to  a  certain  extent,  its  rhythmical  construction  are 
translated  into  sonnetry  ;  but,  taken  as  a  whole,  they 
are  as  hard  reading  as  most  easy  writing.  They  are 
fluent  and  diffuse,  but  devoid  of  felicities  of  expres- 
sion, and  the  note  of  distinction  which  Sidney  some- 
times attains.  Daniel  and  Drayton  were  reckoned 
excellent  poets  by  their  contemporaries,  and  meas- 
ured by  their  standards,  and  within  their  limitations, 
they  were  ;  but  their  excellence  did  not  embrace  the 
emotion  which  the  writing  of  amatory  sonnets  de- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  215 

By  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 

mands,  nor  the  art  of  simulating  it  successfully,  for 
the  **  Delia"  of  the  one  was  as  surely  an  ideal 
mistress  as  the  "  Idea  "  of  the  other.  The  substance 
of  Drayton's  sonnets  is  more  prosaic  than  that  of 
Daniel's  and  his  touch  is  less  felicitous,  is  so  infelici- 
tous, in  fact,  that  only  one  of  the  sixty-three  of 
which  the  sequence  is  composed  lingers  in  the  mem- 
ory as  the  expression  of  what  may  have  been  genuine 
feeling.  The  sonnets  of  Daniel  are  distinguished  for 
sweetness  of  versification,  for  graces  of  expression, 
and  for  a  vein  of  tender  and  pensive  thought  which 
was  native  to  him.  One  of  them  (there  are  fifty- 
seven  in  all)  which  begins,  **  Care-charmer  Sleep, 
son  of  the  sable  night,"  recalls  a  similar  invocation 
to  sleep  in  "Astrophel  and  Stella,"  and  others, 
especially  the  nineteenth,  which  begins,  "Restore 
thy  tresses  to  the  golden  ore,"  remind  us  of  some  of 
the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  whose  first  master  in  son- 
netry  was  as  certainly  Samuel  Daniel,  as  in  dramatic 
writing  Christopher  Marlowe. 

Of  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  I  shall  say  nothing 
here,  for  though  they  form  a  sequence,  the  sequence 
is  not  of  the  kind  which  the  sonnets  of  Sidney  and 
Daniel  and  Drayton  and  Spenser  illustrate,  and  of 


2i6  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr,  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets 

which  the  purpose  is  to  celebrate  the  love  of  a  man 
for  a  woman,  but  of  a  kind  which  the  genius  of 
Shakespeare  originated,  and  which  deals  with  the 
friendship  of  a  man  and  for  a  man,  and  of  which  the 
most  noteworthy  example  is  Tennyson's  **In  Memo- 
riam."  I  pass,  therefore,  from  Spenser  to  Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthornden,  who,  in  the  year  of  Shakes- 
peare's death,  published  in  his  second  collection  of 
verse  a  series  of  sonnets,  songs,  sextains,  and  madri- 
gals, the  majority  of  which  are  of  an  amatory  nature. 
Modelled  after  the  manner  of  his  Italian  and  English 
predecessors,  and  consequently  academical  rather  than 
individual,  they  are  characterized  by  tenderness  of 
sentiment  and  a  vein  of  melancholy  reflection,  by 
studied  graces  of  scholarly  phrasing  which  are  not 
free  from  Scotticisms,  and  by  a  chastened  remem- 
brance of  his  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  Mary  Cunning- 
ham, the  daughter  of  a  laird,  who  was  carried  oiFby 
a  fever  before  the  arrival  of  their  nuptial  day.  The 
line  of  amatory  sonneteers  ended  with  Drummond  ; 
but  not  the  line  of  amatory  poets,  the  best  of  whom 
(apart  from  mere  lyrists  like  Lovelace  and  Suckling) 
was  William  Habington,  who  in  1634— 1635  ^^^^" 
brated  his  affection  for  Lucia,  daughter  of  William, 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  217 

By  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 

Lord  Powis,  and  the  worst  of  whom  was  Abraham 
Cowley,  who,  at  a  later  period,  celebrated  nobody 
in  **  The  Mistress,  or  Several  Copies  of  Love- 
Verses."  There  are  exquisite  things  in  **  Castara,** 
the  title  of  which  is  fully  justified  by  the  spiritual 
purity  of  the  love  of  which  it  is  a  memorial,  and  there 
are  execrable  things  in  **  The  Mistress,"  where  the 
fancy  of  Cowley  exhausted  itself  in  a  profusion  of 
ingenious  conceits,  the  brilliant  absurdity  of  which 
is  absolutely  bewildering.  Love  there  is  none,  nor 
any  serious  pretence  of  it,  Cowley's  motive  in  writ- 
ing being  that  poets  are  scarce  thought  free-men  of 
their  Company,  without  paying  some  duties,  and 
obliging  themselves  to  be  true  to  Love. 

To  follow  the  succession  of  English  amatory  poets 
later  than  their  founders,  the  writers  of  sonnet 
sequences  and  their  lyrical  children,  lies  outside  the 
purpose  of  this  paper,  which  is  simply  to  trace  the 
position  of  Mr.  Parker  ;  so  I  shall  say  nothing  of 
two  illustrious  and  comparatively  recent  members  of 
the  guild,  one  being  Mr.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
who  in  **  The  House  of  Life ' '  has  preserved  and 
Italianated  the  romantic  traditions  of  Sidney  and 
Daniel,  and  the  other,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Brown- 


2i8  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Mr.  Gilbert  Parker's  Sonnets 

ing,  whose  **  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese'*  are  the 
most  impassioned  utterances  of  love  in  any  language, 
linking  her  name  forever  with  the  burning  name  of 
Sappho.  I  find  in  **  A  Lover's  Diary*'  a  quality 
which  is  not  common  in  the  verse  of  to-day,  and 
which  I  find  nowhere  in  its  fulness  except  in  the 
poetry  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth.  To  describe  what 
evades  description,  I  should  call  it  suggestion,  —  a 
vague  hinting  at  rather  than  a  distinct  exposition  of 
feeling  and  thought,  —  the  prescience  of  things  which 
never  beheld  are  always  expected,  the  remembrance 
of  things  which  are  only  known  through  the  shadows 
they  leave  behind  them,  the  perception  of  uncommon 
capacities  for  pain,  the  anticipation  of  endless  ener- 
gies for  pleasure,  the  instinctive  discovery  and  enjoy- 
ment of  the  secret  inspirations  of  love.  The  method 
which  Mr.  Parker  preserves  is  that  of  the  early 
masters,  whose  sole  business  when  they  wrote  son- 
nets was  to  write  sonnets,  not  caring  what  they 
proved,  or  whether  they  proved  anything,  not  dis- 
daining logic,  though  not  solicitous  to  obey  its  laws, 
not  avid  for  nor  averse  from  the  use  of  imagery ; 
content,  in  the  best  words  they  had,  to  free  their 
minds  of  what  was  in   them.     They  wrote  well  or 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  219 

By  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 

ill,  according  to  their  themes  and  moods,  but  nobly, 
gloriously,  when  at  their  best ;  and  to  be  reminded 
of  them  by  a  sonneteer  of  to-day,  as  I  am  by  Mr. 
Parker,  is  a  poetic  enjoyment  which  is  not  often 
vouchsafed  to  me. 


Is  the  New  Woman  New? 

By 

Maurice  Thompson 


IS   THE   NEW   WOMAN   NEW? 

(VARIUM    ET    MUTABILE    SEMPER    FEMINa) 

IT  is  impossible  to  resist  the  New  Woman,  mainly, 
perhaps,  on  account  of  her  moral  fascination  ; 
but  somewhat  is  due  in  this  behalf  to  a  certain  per- 
spective which,  reaching  into  the  enchantment  of 
remote  times,  connects  her  with  a  picturesque  suc- 
cession of  New  Women. 

The  question  might  be  raised  to  decide,  even  at 
this  late  hour,  between  Eve  and  Lilith ;  which  of 
them  was  the  progressive,  representative  female  ? 

There  have  been  notable  personages,  all  along  the 
line  of  the  centuries,  who  have  added  grace  or  dis- 
grace to  their  sex  by  vigorous  assertion  of  new- 
womanhood.  From  the  Hebrew  woman  who  drove 
the  nail  into  her  enemy's  head,  along  down  by  way 
of  the  Greek  philosopher's  wife,  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
as  thoroughly  authentic  records  seem  to  establish,  an 
unbroken  strain  of  man-harrying  amazons  march 
through  history.  And  side  by  side  with  it  another 
procession  is  composed  of  the  intellectual  prodigies 

223 


224  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 


Is  the  New  Woman  New? 


of  various  female  types  who  have  assaulted  the  mas- 
culine stronghold  of  science  and  art,  from  the  days 
of  Sappho  to  this   good  hour. 

Charles  Baudelaire,  in  one  of  his  **  Fleurs  du  Mai,** 
longs  for  the  day  of  giantesses,  and  tuning  his  harp  to 
the  major  key  of  desire,  sings  with  superb  gallantry 
to  the  beat  of  an  enormous  plectrum  :  — 

**Du  temps  que  la  Nature  en  sa  verve  pulssante 
Concevait  chaque  jour  des  enfants  monstrueux 
J'eusse  aime  vivre  aupres  d'une  jeune  geante, 
Comme  aux  pieds  d'une  reine  un  chat  voluptueux." 

Of  course  a  poet  is  sure  to  use  strong  language 
which  goes  better  with  some  grains  of  salt ;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  touching  the  following  sketch  of  a 
New  Woman  :  — 

**  J'eusse  aime  ...... 

Ramper  sur  le  versant  de  ses  genoux  enormes, 
Et  parfois  en  ete,  quand  les  soleils  malsains, 
Lasse,  la  font  s'etendre  a  travers  la  campagne, 
Dormir  nonchalamment  a  1' ombre  de  ses  seins, 
Comme  un  hameau  paisible  au  pied  d'une  montagne." 

To  be  a  very  large  woman's  little  cat  might  not 
satisfy  the  highest  aspiration  of  a  manly  man,  even 
among  jin    de   siecle  poets  ;    and  to  be  as  a  mere 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  225 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

village  in  her  bosom*s  mountain  shadow  is  not  open 
to  consideration  in  the  most  degenerate  masculine 
mind  of  our  epoch.  Still  Baudelaire's  verses,  being 
neither  humor  nor  satire,  adumbrate  a  possible  outcome 
of  civilization,  w^ere  the  New  Woman  to  take  a  giant- 
esque  turn.  She  might  be  supremely  pleased  with 
having  man  purring  at  her  toes,  or  hopelessly  asleep 
in  her  shadow. 

Some  uneasiness  on  the  subject  undoubtedly  exists 
in  certain  male  imaginations.  Not  long  ago  I  said 
to  a  friend  of  mine  that  I  was  willing  for  women  to 
vote  on  equal  terms  with  men  ;  that  I  considered 
their  enfranchisement  a  matter  for  them  to  settle  ;  if 
they  in  committee  of  the  whole  should  declare  for 
this  thing,  let  them  have  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
My  friend  bridled.  "  Yes,  let  them  have  it,"  he 
cried;  *'Iet  them  run  the  government  woman-fash- 
ion for  a  while.  There  's  no  danger  in  the  experi- 
ment. When  we  get  tired  of  them,  we  can  take 
empty  guns  and  scare  them  quite  out  of  the  country. 
Indeed  it  would  be  fun." 

To  avoid  a  hot  political  discussion  I  fell  into  his 
humor  and  suggested  that  the  New  Woman  was 
waxing  athletic ;   that   her  muscles  were  changing  ; 

15 


226  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New  ? 

she  was  even  beginning  to  throw  a  stone  by  the  true 
arm-wheel  motion,  as  boys  and  men  do.  And  I 
drew  his  attention  to  the  young  ladies  on  bicycles 
gliding  past.  Then  there  were  the  fencing  schools, 
too,  and  the  woman's  shooting  galleries,  where 
girls  were  taught  military  doings.  What  did  he 
imagine  might  come  of  permitting  this  progress 
toward  physical  equality  ?  Mayhap,  on  some  dire 
day,  a  second  Jeanne  d'Arc  would  call  to  the  New 
Woman,  as  did  the  other  to  chivalric  man,  and  lead 
the  way  to  wonders  of  conquest,  instead  of  being 
scared  by   empty  guns. 

*' Jeanne  d*Arc  was,  indeed,  a  typical  New 
Woman,"  he  snarled;  **  she  led  on  to  Rouen." 
He  pronounced  it  ruin.  "And  you  will  please 
remember  her  successor  at  Lyons."  This  was  his 
Parthian  arrow ;  he  shot  it  back  over  his  shoulder, 
in  hasty  retreat  meantime,  and  it  stuck  and  rankled 
in  my  critical  curiosity.  I  cudgelled  memory  to 
recollect  who  could  be  this  lyonnaise  so  tantalizingly 
enmisted  in  allusion ;  one  is  not  to  be  censured  for 
being  taken  aback  ;  Lyons  is  a  small  city,  little  but 
old,  and  a  long  ways  off;  moreover  mine  adversary 
had  left  me  no  date. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  227 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

You  can  trust  a  provincial,  however,  when  it 
comes  to  a  matter  of  provincial  history.  A  short 
day's  rummaging  served  my  turn.  Louise  Labe  pre- 
sented herself  to  me  in  a  new  light,  a  striking  figure 
seen  through  three  and  a  third  centuries  of  feminine 
aspiration,  struggle,  and  change.  As  in  the  case  of 
Sappho,  the  woman  was  beset  by  coarse  defamers, 
men  who  made  a  sort  of  middle  comedies  at  her 
expense,  and  doubtless  she  behaved  measurably  in 
accordance  with  the  social  influences  of  her  time  and 
place  ;  but  she  was  a  New  Woman,  notably  inde- 
pendent, original,  and    strong. 

During  the  course  of  a  fascinating  study  in  which 
I  reviewed  everything  at  hand  having  relation  to  the 
life  of  this  remarkable  and  much  maligned  woman, 
the  world-old  attitude  of  the  Literary  Libertine  was 
projected  afresh.  The  man  who,  in  the  name  of 
gallantry,  writes  shame  on  the  record  of  beauty, 
genius,  and  strength,  merely  because  they  chance  to 
be  the  possession  of  a  woman,  stood  before  me  in 
full  stature. 

Louise  Labe,  known  as  La  Belle  Cordiere^ 
was  born  at  Lyons  in  the  year  1526.  Her  real 
name,  before  her  marriage  with   Ennemond  Perrin, 


228  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New  ? 

was  probably  CharliR  ;  but  she  wrote  over  the  sig- 
nature of  Louise  Lab^,  and  her  poetry  immortalized 
it.  I  do  not  feel  like  recommending  any  of  her 
writings.  They  are  historically  and  artistically  in- 
teresting ;  but  one  fmds  them  out-paganing  the 
pagans  in  some  most  objectionable  essentials.  What 
attracts  me  in  her  behalf  is  a  certain  rudimentary 
foresay  uttered  by  her,  not  so  much  in  her  literature 
as  through  her  life,  a  foresay  comprehending  the 
modern  feminine  aspiration.  Nor  would  I  be 
understood  to  mean  that  I  admire  her  attitude  or  her 
aim  ;  many  qualifications  would  be  necessary ;  but 
she  is  attractive  because  she  is  a  significant  figure. 
Her  father  was  a  cordier,  or  a  ship-supply  mer- 
chant, or  both ;  at  all  events,  he  was  rich  and  gave 
his  daughter  a  most  liberal  education.  Lyons  at 
that  time  was  a  literary  centre,  one  of  those  spots  in 
the  south  of  France  made  intellectually  fertile  by  the 
residuary  influence  of  Italian  and  Spanish  residents 
of  earlier  days.  Like  Avignon,  it  was  a  singing 
station  on  the  bank  of  the  melodious  Rhone,  con- 
tributing its  odes  and  ballads  and  chansons  to  the 
medley  which  went  gayly  on  down  through  the  hills 
to  the  Mediterranean  at  Les  Bouches. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  229 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

When  Louise  was  sixteen,  that  is  to  say  in  the 
year  i  542,  Francis  I.  laid  siege  to  Perpignan,  which 
precisely  a  hundred  years  later  became  permanendy 
a  city  of  France.  The  siege  was  a  dismal  failure  ; 
but  some  daring  deeds  were  done  in  its  behalf.  For 
hard  fighting  and  distinguished  personal  valor  honored 
those  dying  days  of  old  chivalry.  A  striking  figure, 
a  youthful  Captain  Loys,  all  armored  and  lance- 
bearing,   came  into  view  at  Perpignan. 

This    was    Louise    Lab^,    in    her    role    of  New 
Woman,  an   apparition  sure  to  storm   the  hearts   of 
men  if  not  the  salients  of  Perpignan.     As  she  herself 
sings,  she  was  seen  — 

<<  En  armes  fiere  aller, 
Porter  la  lance  et  bois  faire  aller, 
Le  devoir  faire  en  Testour  furieux, 
Piquer,  volter  le  cheval  glorieux/' 

Cervantes  might  sneer  in  vain  at  this  rich  new 
bloom  of  knighthood.  What  would  Sidney  or 
Bayard  have  counted  for  at  sixteen  beside  her  in  the 
burning  imagination  of  the  Midi  ?  One  of  our 
American  poets,  a  woman  who  sings  of  divine  right, 
truly  says  — 

"  There  is  no  sex  in  courage  and  in  pain." 


230  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New  ? 

Louise  Labe  had  courage  of  the  first  order.  Hel- 
met and  breastplate,  steel  boot  and  clinking  spur 
decorated  an  embodied  defiance  when  she  rode  down 
to  the  beleaguered  stronghold.  Captain  Loys  repre- 
sented a  revolt  of  girlhood  against  the  sugar-coated 
sex-slavery  of  the   times. 

My  cynical  friend  had  some  good  ground  for  cit- 
ing La  Belle  Cordi^re  as  an  example  of  disaster. 
Her  campaign  came  to  nothing ;  she  returned  to 
Lyons,  married  a  rich  rope-man,  and  went  into  the 
business  of  writing  erotic  verse.  But  why  do  so 
many  women,  and  over  and  over  again,  commit  this 
blighting  mistake  in  the  course  of  their  battle  for 
liberty  ?  Must  the  New  Woman  inevitably  get  her- 
self entangled  in  the  meshes  of  the  illicit  ?  I  think 
not.  Good  mothers,  faithful  wives,  and  healthy- 
minded  sweethearts  are  not  to  be  crowded  out  of 
the  army  of  progress  and  reform  ;  they  are  in  to 
stay  ;  but  the  Louise  Lab^s  are  also  a  persistent  ele- 
ment, and  unfortunately  the  noisiest  and  apparently 
most  influential,  especially  in  the  field  of  literature. 

Woman  must  come  to  her  own  ;  she  must  have 
full  freedom  ;  would  that  to-morrow  were  the  day 
of  it ;  but  not  if  she  is   to  be  like  the  wife  in  the 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  231 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

''Heavenly  Twins,*'  not  if  she  must  take  pattern 
by  a  "Yellow  Aster"  heroine,  a  **  Key-Notes " 
woman,  a  *'  Daughter  of  Music,"  or  any  of  the  still 
worse  models  set  up  by  the  latest  female  propagand- 
ists of  social  and  domestic  reform.  These  writers 
of  polemical  fiction  favoring  the  new  order  of  social 
license  are  at  present  more  in  evidence  than  the  rest 
of  them.  Man,  brutal  Man,  would  be  quite  justi- 
fied in  appealing  to  his  superior  muscle  to  prevent 
the  arrival  of  this  New  Woman,  or  to  hale  her  to 
prison,  as  an  enemy  of  the  race,  should  she  prove 
clever  enough  to  break  through  the  masculine  guard. 
One  laughs,  nevertheless,  thinking  how  justly  and 
efi^ectively  these  decadent  women  might  retort  by 
wondering  what  manner  of  government  and  civiliza- 
tion we  should  have  were  the  Tolstois,  the  Hardys, 
the  Maupassants,  the  George  Moores,  the  Zolas,  the 
Ibsens,  and  the  Hall  Caines  given  the  law-making 
and  law-executing  powers  !  A  beautiful  suggestion. 
I  can  think  of  no  political  absurdity  so  deep,  no 
domestic  calamity  so  comprehensively  terrible.  Per- 
haps our  bluff  American  senator  was  inspired  when 
he  objected  to  "  them  literary  fellers ' '  being  recog- 
nized as  political  possibilities,  and  I  can  fully  realize 


aja  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New? 

the  untainted  unction  with  which  the  English  judge 
sent  a  certain  be-sunflowered  aesthete  to  hard  prison 
labor  upon  a  recent  occasion.  The  general  prin- 
ciple is  that  an  unsexed  woman  and  an  emasculate 
man  ought  to  be   considered  as  outlaws. 

When  Captain  Loys  rode  down  to  Perpignan  on 
her  glorious  war-horse,  she  doubtless  sang  many  an 
amazonian  battle-song  foretasting  from  afar  the  tri- 
umph of  the  New  Woman  when  she  should  mount  to 
the  bastion  coping  and  fling  out  the  banner  of  France. 
Some  months  later,  riding  homeward  up  the  fertile 
valley  of  the  Rhone,  she  changed  her  tune  to  a 
plaintive,  backward-going  wail  for  a  lost  lover  who 
had  proved  untrue.  Farewell  to  Roussillon,  to 
dreams  of  military  glory,  to  all  the  fierce  throbs  of 
war  —  and  good-by  to  the  stalwart,  fickle  soldier 
who  broke  her  heart ! 

It  is  Captain  Loys  no  longer  ;  the  lance  lies  back 
yonder  somewhere  under  the  curtain  of  Perpignan' s 
fort ;  the  helmet  is  too  heavy  ;  the  steel  boots  have 
tired  the  dainty  feet,  and  the  embossed  shield  is  gone 
from  the  girPs  left  arm.  Pretty  Louise  Labe  sits 
sidewise  on  a  palfrey  pacing  gently  up  to  Lyons ; 
she   is  going  home  to  marry,   forlorn  and  loveless. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  233 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

an  easy-going  and  rich  cordier  with  a  luxurious 
home  and  a  garden  by  the  Rhone.  Tlie  New 
Woman  has  tried  to  be  a  man,  and  a  man  has,  by 
the  ancient  test,  shown  her  the  folly  of  it. 

To  a  lusty  youth  a  thing  of  that  sort  is  filliped 
aside  and  forgotten ;  the  girl  lays  it  deep  in  her 
heart.  He  and  she  have  met ;  he  goes  on  his  way 
whistling  a  troubadour  catch,  she  loses  faith  in  every 
soul  under  heaven ;  and  likely  enough  the  worst 
that  passed  between  them  was  a  tender  word  or  two, 
possibly  a  kiss.  You  see  God  built  us  for  different 
tasks ;  and  the  true  New  Woman  knows  it ;  she 
would  like  to  be  rid  of  the  Labe's.  Yet  somehow 
these  Yellow  Book  Girls  make  all  the  noise,  lead  the 
van  and  get  most  of  the  attention. 

**  There  is  our  weak  point,"  said  a  noble  woman 
to  me ;  she  is  one  of  the  fine,  strong  spirits  in  the 
work  of  lifting  her  sex  to  true  freedom  ;  **  there  is 
our  chief  obstacle.  The  divorced  women,  or  *  grass 
widows,'  the  drunkards'  wives,  and  the  disappointed 
old  maids,  are  assuming  leadership,  taking  it  by 
vulgar  force.  This  sets  the  men  against  us  and 
gives  them  that  irresistible  weapon,  ridicule.  The 
women  we  most  need  for  leaders  and  followers  are 


234  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New  ? 

the  happy  wives  and  mothers.  We  want  the  women 
who  have  not  lost  faith  in  men,  marriage,  and  mater- 
nity, the  three  great  M's.  Not  that  we  have  no 
sympathy  with  our  unfortunate  and  unhappy  sisters  ; 
but  the  woman  with  a  grievance,  a  moan  of  woe  in 
her  throat,  and  a  score  to  settle  with  Fate,  is  not  a 
vote-maker.  She  irritates  the  men,  and  they  tell  her 
that  she  should  have  had  better  luck.  She  seems  to 
forget  that  it  is  from  the  men  that  our  boom  must 
come,  and  that  they  will  never  grant  it  while  our 
dyspeptics  are  to  the  fore.  Who,  indeed,  cares  a 
straw  for  what  an  unsuccessful  person  screams  to 
possess  ?  '* 

Now,  this  good  woman  may  have  been  too  hard 
upon  the  class  she  was  talking  at,  I  dare  say  she 
was ;  but  there  was  excellent  political  wisdom  in 
her  words.  The  Louise  Labes  are  naturally  some- 
what jaundiced  and  hysterical ;  when  the  adventures 
of  Captain  Loys  are  over  the  next  thing  is  a  career 
against  Fate  and  the  limits  of  sex.  But  it  is  to  those 
who  already  have  plenty  and  to  spare  that  fortune 
tumbles  down  her  largest  gifts,  not  to  the  empty- 
handed  and  greedy-eyed  failures  who  have  nothing 
but  a  song  of  dole  to  sing. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  235 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

Louise  Labe  went  the  common  road  of  the  irre- 
sponsible New  Woman  in  literature,  the  road  so 
very  popular  to-day,  which  is  paved  with  erotic 
poetry  and  the  fiction  of  free  love  and  marital  in- 
fidehty,  beginning  her  new  life  by  posing  as  a  victim 
bound  in  loveless  marriage-chains  on  the  altar  of 
monstrous  social  injustice.  Her  poetry  was  super- 
Sapphic  and  addressed  to  the  other  man,  not  her 
husband,  a  man  who  presumably  was  above  the 
trade  of  a  cordier,  and  therefore  irresistible  to  the 
low-born  poetess. 

We  must  distinctly  agree  with  Sainte-Beuve,  who 
chivalrously  acquits  Louise  Labe  of  actual  personal 
dishonor.  This  thing  of  dressing  up  a  literary  effigy 
and  labelling  it  with  the  lyrical  egotism  as  self- 
expression  is  an  old  poetic  ruse,  a  fiction  of  the 
Muses.  Louise  was  good  enough  for  her  time  and 
place.  She  imagined  herself  a  sociologist,  and  some- 
how got  it  in  mind  that  the  only  purpose  of  sociol- 
ogy is  by  hook  or  crook  to  get  rid  of  the  sanctity 
of  the  marriage  relation.  Indeed,  if  we  may  judge 
the  New  Woman,  from  Louise's  time  to  now,  by 
her  poems  and  fictions,  we  must  inevitably  conclude 
that  she  would  define  sociology  as  the  science  of 
making  the  social  evil  appear  harmlessly  attractive; 


236  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

Is  the  New  Woman  New? 

or  that,  like  some  of  our  contemporaries,  she  would 
travel  all  the  way  to  Russia  to  get  the  pattern  of 
Tolstoi's  trousers,  having  in  mind  a  stunning  new 
bicycle  suit,  or  a  lecture  upon  dress-reform.  She  is 
not  humorous ;  but  she  makes  a  good  deal  of  fun 
for  the  men. 

After  all  it  may  be  that  the  New  Woman  is  a 
recurring  decimal,  as  the  arithmeticians  would  say, 
appearing  at  certain  intervals  with  a  constantly  shift- 
ing value  to  civilization.  If  she  persists  in  being 
rather  ornamental  than  useful,  taken  as  a  noun  of  mul- 
titude, we  are  all  the  more  her  debtor  on  the  side 
of  romance,  which  — 

**  Loves  to  nod  and  sing," 

and  which,  if  it  cannot  always  get  "  sweetness  and 
light*'  to  charm  itself  withal,  gladly  accepts  sweet- 
ness and  chic  instead.  Half  way  betw^een  a  gro- 
tesque gargoyle  and  a  dainty  flower-ornament  of  our 
social  and  domestic  structure,  there  is,  perhaps,  a 
mean  at  which  the  New  Woman  is  aiming ;  at  all 
events  she  means  to  be  decorative,  as  she  always  has 
been,  and  down  the  ages  ahead  of  us  she  will  dc«ibt- 
less  continue  to  charm,  amuse,  and  marry  man,  prov- 
ing herself  to  him  a  great  luxury,  but  notably 
expensive. 


The  Return  of  the  Girl 

By 

Maurice  Thompson 


THE   RETURN   OF   THE   GIRL 

TctSe  vvu  eraipais 
Tats  ifiaiai  repTrva  Ka\Co5  aeia-o). 

—  Sappho,  Frag.  II. 

T^O  begin  with,  a  girl  is,  generally  speaking,  an 
■^  interesting  organism,  and  a  perfect  specimen 
finds  prompt  welcome  in  any  cabinet.  The  type  is 
not  paleozoic  ;  at  all  events  no  fossil  remains  have 
yet  been  discovered  in  any  of  the  rocks ;  but  Jane 
Austen  may  serve  in  that  stead,  duly  pinned  and 
labelled  archeparthenos. 

Not  of  grizzled  spinsters  dully  staring,  in  the 
mummy  stage  of  existence,  out  of  vitreous  eyes  fur- 
nished by  the  taxidermist,  but  of  plump,  sound, 
hearty  young  girls  do  we  now  wish  some  scientific 
notes.  Let  the  withered  type-specimens  remain  in 
their  glass  cases  for  the  benefit  of  Professor  Shelfdust 
and  the  English  novelists  :  our  heroine  is  yet  under 
twenty  years  of  age ;  she  has  never  heard  of  sociol- 
ogy and  is  marvellously  ignorant  of  the  ethics  of 
elopement ;  but  she  is  as  clever  as  she  is  fascinating. 

239 


24-0  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Return  of  the  Girl 

Sappho  knew  the  value  of  her  sex  in  the  bud, 
when  perfect  girl  nature  was  just  beginning  to  let  go 
its  charming  essentials  upon  the  air. 

"  ris  S'  dypoicoTLS  roi  6e\yei  voov 
ovK  eTTKxrafx^va  toi.  jSpciKe'  eyKiju  iirl  rwv  acpvpuv ; " 

*'  What  rustic  lass  can  win  your  heart 
Without  a  touch  of  girlish  art  ? ' ' 

Or  literally  :  **  What  rustic  maiden,  even,  can 
captivate  your  mind,  if  she  is  not  clever  at  drawing 
her  skirts  around  her  ankles?**  There  shows  the 
brush  of  genius,  a  fine  stroke,  like  the  circle  of 
Giotto,  projecting  a  complete  figure ;  and  it  is  warm 
with  life.  The  girl  is  pretty,  brown  as  a  berry, 
smiling,  and  lissomely  graceful.  Her  sophistication  is 
altogether  hereditary.  Sidney  had  her  in  mind 
when  he  wrote  :  — 

"  Gay  hair,  more  gay  than  straw  when  harvest  lies. 
Lips  red  and  plump  as  cherries'  ruddy  side. 
Eyes  fair  and  great,  like  fair  great  ox's  eyes,   .•  .   . 
.    .    .    Flesh  as  soft  as  wool  new  dressed, 
And  yet  as  hard  as  brawn  made  hard  by  art." 

Like  a  bird  in  a  bush,  the  strong,  healthy  girl 
shows  her  decorations  with  enthusiastic  willingness. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  241 

By  Maurice  Thompson 


yet  shyly,  flitting  betimes  and  keeping  quite  out  of 
reach,  while  apparently  not  thinking  of  danger. 
Even  the  wild  lass,  saucing  Daphnis  from  the  door- 
way of  her  cave,  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  would 
hang  his  head  and  pass  by.  She  was  <Tvvo(f>pvs  Kopa; 
that  is,  her  eyebrows  ran  together  across  her  nose, 
which  was  not  as  unfortunate  as  Herrick's  sort  of 
girl,  who  was  — 

**  One  of  those 
That  an  acre  hath  of  nose.'* 

Why  will  the  thought  of  berries  come  up  ?  Dear 
old  Suckling  gave  vent  to  it  thus  :  — 

"  No  grape  that 's  kindly  ripe  could  be 
So  round,  so  plump,  so  soft  as  she, 
Nor  half  so  full  of  juice.'" 

No  wonder  that  it  has  been  a  persistent  dream  of 

masculine  poets  to  — 

**  Journey  along 
With  an  armful  of  girl  and  a  heart  full  of  song!  " 

We  older  folk,  who  were  brought  up  and  educated 
in  the  sweet  provincial  ways,  can  see  that  it  has  been 
the  atrabilious  old  maids  and  the  matronly  flirts  who 
have  banished  the   dear,  delicious  girl   from  artistic 

16 


242  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Return  of  the  Girl 

consideration.  The  woman  of  thirty,  and  upwards, 
by  persistent  manoeuvring,  has  got  between  us  and 
sweet  sixteen.  What  we  have  to  show  for  the 
change  is  the  feminine  novel  of  nasty  morals.  Of 
course  many  of  these  flabby  romances  about  over- 
mature heroines  are  written  by  men  ;  but  they  are 
mostly  men  of  a  beardless  style  with  much  complaint 
to  make  against  their  ancestors.  A  sound  man 
naturally  loves  a  healthy  young  girl  and  wants  to  be 
her  father,  her  brother,  or  her  lover,  according  to 
propriety.  He  is,  moreover,  lenient  towards  the 
elderly  unmarried  females,  when  they  do  not  insist 
upon  the  superiority  of  an  Isabella-colored  complex- 
ion ;  but  at  best  they  are  not  girls ;  in  which  they 
differ  from  happily  married  women,  who  keep  to 
themselves  a  girlish  charm  late  into  life. 

We  all  have  our  misfortunes  for  which  we  are  not 
in  the  least  to  blame.  The  single  woman  whose 
bloom  is  gone  is  interesting  as  an  embodied  pathos, 
but  not  thrilling  as  a  sweetheart ;  she  looks  dry  as  a 
heroine  of  romance  ;  she  spoils  a  love-song.  No 
wonder  that  the  realists  cannot  fit  their  art  to  girl- 
hood while  their  theory  of  life  excludes  sweetness 
and  health.     It  is  a  pursuit  of  love  within  discour- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  243 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

aging  limitations  when  some  middle-aged  man,  with 
gray  in  his  whiskers,  limps  rheumatically  on  the  track 
of  a  stout  lady  in  her  thirties,  and  with  a  picture  of 
such  a  race  is  pessimism  best  represented. 

But  the  healthy  and  natural  girl,  apple-cheeked 
and  merry-eyed,  sweet- voiced  —  irapOevov  aSvcjiovov 
—  a  girl  of  girls,  is  what  charms  mankind  in  life  and 
literature.  Her  ways  are  like  thistledown  in  a  sum- 
mer breeze;  they  suggest  idyllic  dreams  and  make 
us  believe  in  all  manner  of  delightful  human  happiness. 
We  are  all  poets  when  she  engages  our  imagination ; 
we  are  all  young  when  she  loves  us ;  we  are  all 
good  in  her  presence,  — holy-minded  at  thought  of 
her. 

Perhaps  the  surest  sign  of  decadence  in  art  is  the 
appearance  of  the  dame  in  the  space  naturally  oc- 
cupied by  the  lass ;  for  it  proves  that  taste  is  no 
longer  an  elemental  impulse,  but  rather  a  matter  of 
fashion,  or  of  illicit  influence.  We  do  not  find 
Madame  Bovary  appealing  to  the  ever-fresh  wells  of 
our  manhood.  We  could  not  be  glad  of  having  her 
for  mother,  wife,  daughter,  sister,  or  sweetheart.  She 
poisons  our  imagination  and  repels  our  interest.  It 
is  a  delight  to  turn  away  from  her  to  the  blushing 


244  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Return  of  the  Girl 

young  heroine  who  loves  purely  and  with  all  her 
heart,  —  a  girl  as  fresh  and  sound  as  a  May  straw- 
berry. 

Of  all  unnatural  things  none  can  seem  quite  so 
unjust  as  ill  health  falling  upon  a  girl.  Balzac,  in 
one  of  his  hideously  interesting  romances,  pictures  to 
the  minutest  line  a  poor  child  stricken  with  disease 
and  robbed  of  her  season  of  bud  and  bloom.  I  have 
always  felt  that  the  story  was  an  unpardonable  piece 
of  writing.  We  sometimes  see  such  pitiful  and 
appealing  objects  in  the  street,  or  at  some  country 
place  ;  but  why  should  they  be  put  into  books  writ- 
ten for  our  delectation  ? 

Once  upon  a  time  a  friend  and  I,  upon  archery 
intent,  tramped  together  for  a  fortnight  among  the 
hills  of  North  Carolina,  in  a  region  given  over  to  the 
race  of  mountaineers.  It  was  saddening  to  observe 
the  lean,  vacant,  bloodless  faces  of  the  girls  in  the 
cabins.  As  a  rule,  however,  activity  of  body  and  a 
certain  limberness  go  with  these  desiccated-looking 
countenances,  and  now  and  again  you  find  a  flower 
of  rustic  loveliness  wasting  its  sweetness  and  ignorance 
on  the  mountain  air.  An  instance  comes  to  mind. 
We  were  having  luncheon  at  a  spring  under  the  hill. 


CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS  245 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

. , — — — - — - — . — . 1'  ' 

upon  which  an  ancient  cabin  nestled  amid  its  peach- 
trees. 

Down  a  zig-zag  path  worn  into  the  brick-yellow 
clay  and  rotten  slate  of  the  declivity  came  a  maiden 
bearing  on  her  head  a  cedar  noggin.  She  stepped 
briskly  and  nimbly,  not  deigning  to  touch  the  noggin 
with  her  hand,  but  with  scarcely  perceptible  head- 
movements  kept  it  at  perfect  equilibrium  on  her 
crown.  Barefooted,  her  coarse  blue  petticoat  very 
scant  and  short,  a  wonderful  brush  of  pale  gold  hair 
crinkling  over  her  perfect  shoulders,  her  arms  half 
bare,  a  throat  like  a  bird's,  and  a  face-flower  full  of 
happy  lights,  she  made  just  that  sudden  impression  of 
aesthetic  surprise  which  comes  with  the  poet's  rarest 
phrase  and  most  unexpected  rhyme. 

It  turned  out  that  this  strong  young  thing  was  as 
ignorant  and  empty  as  she  was  beautiful  and  healthy  ; 
but  when  she  spoke  to  us  her  voice  had  the  timbre 
of  a  hermit  thrush's  and  she  gave  us  a  glimpse  of 
teeth  incomparably  white  and  even.  She  was  not 
timid,  not  bold,  but  natural.  Took  hold  of  my  yew 
bow,  which  rested  against  a  tree,  and  inquired  about 
it,  fingered  my  arrows  and  quiver,  asked  my  com- 
panion whither  we  were  going.     All   this  time  the 


246  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


The  Return  of  the  Girl 


cedar  noggin  on  her  sunny  head  wagged  gently,  but 
kept  its  place,  until  presently  she  took  it  off,  and, 
with  a  melodious  souse  in  the  spring,  filled  it,  re- 
placed it  aloft  and  walked  back  up  the  hill,  hands 
down  and  absolutely  sure  of  foot. 

"  Well,"  said  my  companion,  in  a  breathless  tone, 
**if  I  did  n't  think  for  a  moment  that  you  meant  to 
shoot  her!     A  regular  wood  nymph.** 

As  for  myself  I  did  not  like  the  term  wood  nymph 
applied  to  a  girl  like  that.  She  was  as  pretty,  as  pure, 
and  as  ignorant  as  a  wild  blue  violet,  and  evidently  as 
happy  as  a  lark  in  a  meadow.  I  felt  the  better  for 
having  seen  her,  and,  as  we  trudged  on,  there  was  a 
new  fragrance  in  my  imagination. 

The  streets  and  suburban  lanes  of  our  little  West- 
ern towns  and  cities  offer  great  facilities  for  the  study 
of  happy  girlhood,  large  thanks  to  the  bicycle. 
During  my  summer  walks  and  drives  I  meet  whisps 
and  flocks  and  bevies  of  lasses,  or  they  pass  me  at 
scorching  speed.  They  put  the  "bicycle-face**  to 
shame  with  their  rippling  countenances  and  merry 
chatter.  I  shall  never,  I  hope,  forget  one  little  maid 
of  fifteen  who  drove  her  wheel  as  straight  and  steady 
as  a  flying  quail,  with  her  arms  folded  on  her  breast. 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  247 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

and  her  lithe  body  poised  inimitably.  She  looked  at 
me  with  big  round  eyes,  as  if  to  say  :  *'Do  you  see 
how  I  can  do  this  ? '  * 

Indeed,  my  enjoyment  of  the  frank  sweetness  in 
the  air  where  girls  are  at  play  would  be  perfect  were 
it  not  for  the  **  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  "  so  often  in 
evidence  ;  but  for  him,  all  becurled  and  beruffled,  I 
have  a  supreme  and  stony  aversion.  If  some  ruddy, 
ragged  urchin,  of  the  true  Adamic  race,  would  but 
down  him  and  bedaub  him  with  mud!  If  some  girl 
would  spank  him  and  send  him  home ;  but  the  girl 
seems  actually  to  like  the  self-conscious  and  unnatural 
little  scamp.  She  smoothes  his  collar  and  pulls 
down  his  velvet  jacket,  hugs  him  and  calls  him  pet 
names.  He  is  the  fellow  who  will  grow  up  to  be 
gun-shy,  and  inclined  to  marry  a  double-divorced 
actress,  much  to  the  girl's  disgust. 

It  was  Madame  de  Stael,  I  believe,  who  said  : 
'*  Let  my  children  be  not  girls;  for  a  woman's  life  is 
so  sad."  Even  she,  however,  did  not  find  girlhood 
unhappy,  and  the  preventive  to  be  used  against  the 
misery  of  womanhood  would  be  to  hold  on  to  girlish 
simplicity,  faith,  and  sanity  as  long  as  possible.  We 
grow  like  what  we  contemplate,  and  the  question  is. 


248  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Return  of  the  Girl 

do  we  now-a-days  give  adequate  contempladon  to 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  whose  symbol 
and  measure  is  the  heart  of  a  healthy  girl  ?  Our 
civilization  must  luxuriate  in  what  maidenhood  can 
safely  assimilate,  or  it  must  grovel  at  the  feet  of  the 
yellow  woman,  tough  and  passe'e. 

There  is  encouraging  evidence,  visible  just  now,  of 
a  desire  on  the  public's  part  to  get  rid  of  Old  Mrs. 
Woman,  and  take  up  once  more  with  her  grand- 
daughter, the  not  wholly  unsophisticated,  but  yet 
quite  innocent  and  undesigning  maiden.  Men  of  the 
right  sort  have  always  felt  that  the  happy  married 
woman  should  be  sheltered  from  publicity,  and  that 
the  unhappy  wife's  sorrows  are  sacred;  but  the  love 
of  a  youth  and  a  maid,  that  is  something  for  the  de- 
light of  the  whole  world.  We  are  tired  of  this  rank 
immorality  tricked  out  in  the  toggery  of  love,  —  and 
the  lovers  married  to  other  folk,  —  this  rank  immoral- 
ity of  the  old  blas^  hero  and  the  adroit,  conscience- 
less and  time-battered   heroine. 

A  return  to  the  insipid  pastoral  of  the  early  cen- 
turies would  be  tolerable,  if  no  better  shift  can  be 
had,  as  breach  full  and  wide  with  the  feminine  party 
of  faded  spinsterhood  and  preposterous  sociology,  of 


HAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  249 


By  Maurice  Thompson 


tirades  against  marriage  and  of  the  sainthood  of  grass 
widows.  Let  in  the  young  girl  of  sound  body  and 
merry  heart ;  give  her  another  chance  ;  the  whole 
world  is  ready  to  welcome  her.  Her  smile  will 
banish  the  yellow  dust  of  the  faded  asters ;  her  pres- 
ence will  hush  even  the  whisper  of  brutalities. 

The  other  day  I  wrote  to  a  distant  friend  and  put 
to  him  Horace's  light  question  :  — 

"  Quae  circumvolitas  agills  thy  ma  ?  " 

Back  came  the  answer :  **  I  am  running  races  with 
my  three  litde  girls.  What  is  there  better  to  do  ?  " 
A  man  of  gravity  and  distinction  playing  with  his 
little  daughters  has  what  a  politician  would  call  a 
**  pull  *'  upon  the  gods  for  the  highest  joy  of  exist- 
ence. From  that  play-ground  he  bears  away  the 
nectar  of  incomparable  flowers,  and  the  pollen  on  his 
thighs  will  freshen  the  whole  hive  of  the  world. 

We  may  be  sure  that  there  is  something  wrong 
when  we  hear  it  growled  around  that  young  maiden- 
hood is  insipid  in  art,  and  that  virility  —  a  murrain 
seize  the  word  —  demands  a  Harriet  Martineau,  or 
the  like,  for  a  good,  substantial  feast  of  the  imagina- 
tion.     Not   assuming   to    know  a   great   deal    about 


150  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Return  of  the  Girl 

virile  women,  I  can  venture  the  statement  that  truly 
virile  men  adore  the  young  girl.  She  is  the  heroine 
of  the  iron-w^illed,  vastly  capable,  boy-hearted  fellows 
who  make  the  world  move.  There  is  always  a  love 
of  simple,  elemental  pleasures  in  great  masculine 
natures.  Precious  little  they  care  for  artificial  cheeks 
and  pencilled  eyebrows.  Better  a  healthy,  dewy- 
lipped  milkmaid,  singing  behind  the  hedge,  than  a 
bediamonded  old  heiress  whose  teeth  have  ground 
luxuries  some  three  dozen  long  years. 

At  all  events  my  own  preference  for  the  blushing 
young  heroine  is  unalterable,  and  I  am  eager  to  see 
her  come  back,  garlanded  and  happy,  to  take  her 
rightful  place  in  both  life  and  romance.  I  long  to 
read  yet  one  more  book  wherein  the  sound-hearted 
story-teller  gives  full  run  to  that  quintessential  joy  of 
loving  which  only  the  young  girl  can  inspire.  I  am 
tired  of  bacon  and  potatoes  ;  give  me  some  of  old 
Gervase  Markham*  s  simples  — 


t( 


The  king-cup,  the  pansy  with  the  violet. 
The  rose  that  loves  the  shower. 
The  wholesome  gilliflower.'* 


The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing 

Well 
By 
Maurice  Thompson 


THE   ART   OF   SAYING   NOTHING 

WELL 

La  simplicite  divine  de  la  pensee  et  du  style. 

—  Paul   Verlaine. 

TN  our  day,  as  it  now  flies,  there  are  fine  films 
■■•  of  distinction  to  be  considered,  notably  in 
literary  art.  The  merest  gossamer  of  verbal  indica- 
tion must  be  respected  in  the  behalf  of  style,  lest  a 
shade  of  meaning,  no  matter  how  vague,  be  lost 
from  paragraph  or  phrase.  The  thing  to  be  said  is 
of  no  importance,  we  are  told ;  but  how  it  is  said, 
that  is  the  great  matter. 

If  the  title  of  the  present  paper  be  seriously 
studied  it  will  prove  puzzling  to  the  average  critic. 
It  is  a  charming  sentence,  rich  in  possibilities  of 
meaning.  The  last  two  words,  like  the  tail  of  a 
bee,  bear  honey  and  poison  on  the  same  spike,  or  in 
sacs  close  by.  Which  shall  you  receive,  a  sweet  drop 
or  an  enraging  prick  ?  What,  indeed,  does  "  saying 
nothing  "  mean  ?     And  nothing  well  said,  does  that 

^53 


254  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 


The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well 

mean  a  well-said  nothing  ?  or  shall  we  understand 
that  anything  has  been  poorly  said  ? 

Behold  how  easily  a  pen  slips  into  hopeless 
obscurities  of  mere  ink !  I  see  that  I  am  gone  wool- 
gathering, and  that  my  verbal  distinctions  just  at- 
tempted do  not  distinguish.  Was  it  Horace  who 
said  this  ?  — 

**Non  in  caro  nidore  voluptas  summa,  sed  in  te 
ipso  est." 

The  "precious  smack,'*  however,  goes  a  long 
ways  when  there  is  nothing  else  to  be  had.  The 
art  of  saying  nothing  well  is  the  art  of  the  bore  or 
the  art  of  the  decadent,  as  you  may  interpret  it. 
But  a  voice  at  my  elbow  quietly  suggests  that  the 
distinction  is  still  without  a  difference.  The  deca- 
dent, being  always  a  bore,  w^hether  he  has  a  pre- 
cious smack  or  a  smack  of  preciousness,  has  the  art 
of  saying  nothing  well  and  everything  ill. 

The  good  old  days,  when  men  who  wrote  were 
impressed  with  the  value  of  original  thought,  were 
hard  on  brains,  but  easy  on  dictionaries.  A  tre- 
mendous idea  was  set  for  all  time  in  a  few  words 
grabbed  at  random  from  a  scant  vocabulary.  Even 
after  "  art  for  art's  sake"  had   come   to  stay,   the 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  255 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

great  early  poets  were  stingy  in  their  verbal  dealings 
with  art.  It  is  surprising  to  note  how  meagre  is  the 
vocabulary  of  Sappho,  or  of  Theocritus,  or  of  Pindar. 
And  yet  what  incomparable  riches  of  expression  ! 
The  masters  were  in  a  flux  of  imagination,  and  to 
them  a  word  had  no  value  beyond  its  fitness  to  stand 
as  a  perfect  sign  of  what  the  brain  originated.  But 
not  so  with  us  ;  we  chase  the  word  for  the  word's 
sake.  We  imagine  that  there  is  something  precious 
in  verbal  style  quite  independent  of  what  it  may  be 
used  upon.  A  cheese,  although  rotten,  is  made 
sweet  enough,  we  think,  by  being  wrapped  in  an 
artistic  poster. 

We  are  quite  familiar  with  the  phase  "  good 
literature,"  which  has  come  to  mean  nothing  and 
that  wordy,  or  a  good  thing  and  that  well  written, 
according  to  the  individual  taste  of  the  critic  deciding 
the  matter.  But  most  generally  we  now  take  for 
granted  that  there  is  really  nothing  worth  saying  on 
account  of  its  intrinsic  value.  As  a  new  woman 
said  of  her  kind  the  other  day,  **  Oh,  the  female 
form  is  but  a  clothes-horse  nowadays.  A  woman  is 
suggested,  not  seen,  by  what  she  wears,'*  we  may 
well  say  of  thought :  it  is  a  mere  word-rack,  a  peg 


256  CHAP-BOOK    ESSAYS 

The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well 

upon  which  to  hang  attractive  diction.  Not  unfre- 
quently  the  thought  is  quite  dispensed  with  and  the 
phrasing  hangs  upon  nothing. 

If  you  have  nothing  to  write,  of  course  write  it 
well.  Good  literature,  like  Homer*s  and  Chaucer's 
and  Shakespeare's,  was  well  enough  before  Th^o- 
phile  Gautier  invented  style  ;  but  since  then  there 
has  come  a  change,  and  now  we  demand,  not  new 
matter,  but  always  a  new  manner.  As  for  dura- 
bility, we  are  satisfied  with  a  season's  run  ;  perma- 
nency is  not  desirable.  Fame,  which  once  was  a 
thing  to  die  for,  has  taken  on  the  form  of  a  spring 
jacket  or  summer  cravat ;  you  wear  it  till  the  next 
change  in  the  weather.  The  art  of  saying  nothing 
well  is  as  fickle  as  the  moon ;  for  nothing  and 
woman  pride  themselves  upon  varying  their  fashions ; 
and  what  is  good  literature  now  but  woman  and 
nothing  ?  Aminta  and  her  George  Meredith  strut 
before  us  as  if  they  owned  the  earth ;  but  to- 
morrow there  will  be  another  woman  and  a  new 
nothing. 

The  happiest  literary  folk  in  all  the  world  must 
be  those  in  Paris,  who  actually  took  Paul  Verlaine 
seriously,  and  are  now  making  obeisance  to  St^phane 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  257 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

Mallarme.  They  seem  to  be,  if  we  leave  out  cer- 
tain provengal  dialect  writers  and  our  own  American 
critics,  the  only  litterateurs  upon  earth  who  would 
heroically  die  rather  than  be  right.  M.  Mallarm^ 
expresses  perfectly  in  a  single  phrase  the  whole  ambi- 
tion of  his  literary  flock  :  **  d'abord  et  toujours  et 
irr^sistiblement  Verlaine.'*  But  how  charming  a 
thing  literature  is  in  the  hands  of  these  pontes  maudits, 
as  Verlaine  styled  them  !  To  be  sure,  it  is  naught 
but  nothing  well  said.  Verlaine  may  have  been 
right  when  he  wrote  his  eulogy  :  "  Absolus  par 
P  imagination,  absolus  par  P  expression,  absolus 
comme  les  Reys  Netos  des  meilleurs  si^cles  ;  "  there 
is  much  to  be  said  about  nothing,  and  more  about 
such  writers  as  Corbi^re,  Rimbaud,  Mallarm^,  and 
Villiers  de  L'  Isle- Adam,  who  have  served  to  amuse 
a  blas^  crowd  of  the  best  fellows  that  ever  lived,  the 
Alexandrian  Greek  poets  doubtfully  excepted. 

What  Sir  Walter  Scott  called  "  the  big  bow- 
wow" is  not  suited  to  the  perfect  expression  of 
nothing.  Browning's  diction  gets  on  better  at  a 
pinch,  when  the  poet  has  to  resort  to  a  dazzling  dis- 
play of  blank  verbal  cartridges ;  for  sometimes  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  distinguish  a  meaningless  whiiF 

17 


Z58  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well 

of  word-wind  from  a  whizzing  bullet  of  thought. 
We  dodge  with  delight  when  either  clips  too  near 
us.  The  other  day  I  was  auditing  the  book-bills  of 
"  Narcissus,"  and  found  myself  delicately  and  deli- 
ciously  charmed  by  what  under  different  circumstances 
would  have  been  a  mere  lack  of  assets  to  back  the 
paper.  Style  never  went  further  nor  came  back 
with  a  more  fragrant  and  savory  load  of  nothing. 
From  paragraph  to  paragraph  one  glides  over  a  mean- 
dering smoothness.  It  is  like  bicycling  on  imaginary 
asphalt  between  immaterial  clover  fields.  One  hears 
bumblebees  and  sheep  and  kine  ;  but  never  is  there 
any  visible  or  tangible  matter  of  delectation  ;  only 
a  lulling  composite  noise  ;  vox  et  prceterea  nihil. 
This  voice  of  the  hollow  sphere  and  this  dripping  of 
melodious  word-showers,  to  change  the  figures,  com- 
bine to  high  perfection  in  the  latest  good  literature. 
Think  of  what  a  fascination  a  style  can  have,  when  a 
young  girl  fresh  from  Vassar  flings  down  a  volume 
by  William  Sharp,  or  one  by  I.  Zangwill,  and  rap- 
turously exclaims  :  *'  Shakespeare  and  Scott  are  not 
in  it  for  a  minute  longer!"  How  delightful  to  do 
good  that  evil  may  come! 

It  would  be  hardly  fair  to  wring  into  this  paper  a 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  259 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

consideration  of  the  art  of  writing  nothing  ill.  Walt 
Whitman  and  Stephen  Crane  have  given  practical 
demonstrations  of  what  may  be  done  at  a  venture  in 
that  field.  Here  again  my  own  style  persists  in 
obscurity.  Nothing  to  write  and  the  poorest  im- 
aginable style,  is  not  exactly  the  same  with  plenty  to 
write  and  not  a  sentence  ill  written.  The  art  of 
writing  nothing  and  writing  it  ill  might,  however,  be 
admirable  in  the  hands  of  a  master.  For  example, 
there  is  Andrew  Lang's  eulogy  of  H.  Rider  Hag- 
gard's stories,  which  I  might  cite  in  any  part  of  this 
essay  with  perfect  propriety  and  unqualified  approval, 
as  being  strictly  in  point.  When  Mr.  Lang  has 
absolutely  nothing  for  subject  he  is  alluringly  objec- 
tive and  revels  in  good  literature.  He  is  singularly 
expert  in  writing  nothing  ill. 

But  the  art  of  writing  nothing  well,  of  wridng  so 
that  nothing  is  well  said,  or  whatever  I  mean,  offers 
difficulties  not  readily  foreseen  by  the  ambitious  can- 
didate for  authorhood.  Nothing  must  ever  be  dressed 
up  to  look  like  a  great  something  with  an  honorable 
ancestry  and  a  congenital  lease  upon  posterity,  unless 
we  accept  the  other  interpretation  of  my  caption. 
What  could,  on  the  other  hand,  be  reasonably  de- 


7.60  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well 

scribed  as  the  bloomer-costume  style  of  writing,  by 
which  effeminate  imaginings  are  made  to  masquerade 
as  virile  and  of  the  major  origin,  demands  serious 
and  exhaustive  study.  To  achieve  it  William  Wat- 
son has,  we  hope,  a  long  life  of  self-reform  before 
him  ;  but  some  are  born  to  it.  Austin  Dobson 
would  not,  apparently,  give  a  penny  to  have  it, 
albeit  some  of  his  best  work  neatly  grazes  the  goal. 
Happy  accident  has  done  much  on  this  score  for 
Henry  James,  reading  whose  latest  work  one  might 
exclaim  with  Mr.  Sherburne  Hardy:  *<But  yet  a 
woman!  **  And  Mr.  Howells  should  never  go  near 
a  Shaker  village  if  he  has  any  regard  for  what  old 
friends  think  of  his  style.  It  makes  him  say  nothing 
with  unusual  delight. 

When  I  get  back  to  my  Greek,  as  I  usually  do  at 
the  earliest  moment,  an  essay  like  Aristotle*  s  on 
poetry  makes  me  wonder  how  it  has  lived  so  long 
and  kept  so  well,  seeing  that  it  says  something  with- 
out regard,  at  any  point,  to  "lightness  of  touch*'  or 
to  preciousness  of  phrasing.  It  is  not  good  literature, 
measured  by  the  standard  of  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son's style  ;  but  in  its  gnarls  of  diction  are  thoughts 
hard  bound  with  fibres  that  are  indestructible.      Aris- 


CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS  261 

By  Maurice  Thompson 

totle  was  too  busy  inside  of  his  brain  to  have  much 
respect  for  exterior  frills ;  but  where  shall  we  find 
solider  phrases  than  he  snatched  out  of  his  stinted 
vocabulary  ?  It  is  tough  reading,  almost  as  bad  as 
Browning's  best,  and  the  words  grate  together  like 
teeth  with  sand  between  them ;  still,  something  is 
said.  You  remember  his  turns  of  diction  by  associat- 
ing them  with  his  thoughts  ;  but  you  never  dream  of 
regarding  him  as  a  writer  with  a  style-charm.  His 
fascination  comes  from  deep  down,  as  if  sent  up  by 
roots  squeezed  between  bowlders. 

And  it  is  true  that  a  permanent  fascination  of  style 
is  always  due  to  something  more  than  nothing  well 
said.  The  attempt  has  been  made  in  American  crit- 
icism to  stow  a  poem  like  Poe's  *' Raven"  away  in 
the  lumber  garret  as  a  mere  word-trick ;  but  there 
is  something  tremendously  human  in  the  spiritual 
adumbration  by  which  that  great  poem  sustains  itself. 
Style  is  there,  superb  style ;  and  the  clutch  of  grim 
sorrow,  the  pang  of  despair,  and  the  helplessness  of  a 
soul  in  the  presence  of  fate,  are  there  as  well.  Poe 
could  not  command  Stevenson's  nimble  diction,  nor 
could  he  even  understand  what  humor  like  Lowell's 
was.      The  power  in  his  work  came  from  behind  his 


i6z  CHAP-BOOK   ESSAYS 

The  Art  of  Saying  Nothing  Well 

lines  out  of  a  wellspring  hidden  in  a  strange  and 
original  mind.  He  *' played  with  dictionaries" 
and  feigned  abstruse  learning ;  but  he  said  new  and 
impressive  things  in  a  new  and  impressive  style. 

The  deepest  truth  connected  with  the  permanency 
of  art  is  that  there  must  be  style,  which  does  not 
stand  for  the  same  thing  as  diction,  nor  for  the  same 
thing  as  characteristic  stroke,  manner,  or  tone.  Mere 
deftness  with  the  brush,  mere  cleverness  with  the 
fiddle-bow,  mere  facility  in  the  doing  of  word-jug- 
glery, cannot  pass  into  permanent  art,  and  this  is  the 
lesson  we  need  to-day.  We  take  verbal  style  too 
seriously  when  we  reckon  with  it  as  of  more  impor- 
tance than  fresh  thought  and  enlarged  ideals.  It  is 
not  the  art  of  saying  nothing  well  that  wins  in  the 
long  run ;  it  is  the  art  of  saying  a  great  thing  with  a 
simple  charm  of  style  which  does  most  to  enrich 
literature.  Indeed,  great  things  are  themselves  sim- 
ple, the  greatest  the  simplest.  Nothing  is  well  said 
when  nothing  is  said. 


THE    END 


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Renewed  books  are  subject  to  inmiediate  recall. 


JMl 


b 


REC'DLD    JAN  C4  72-3  PNI8  1 


SEP  05  1987 


MM 


ftllG  0  5  1987 


LD21A-40to-8,'71 
(P6572sl0)476-A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


«l 


GENEB/ILUBBflBy.u.c.BEBKELEy 


CHAP-BOOK  ESSAYS 


